IRLF 


Ube  7Hni\>ersits  of 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


THE  TRANSITION  TO  AN  OBJECTIVE 

STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL 

CONTROL 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS 

AND  LITERATURE  IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT  OF  SOCIOLOGY) 


BY 

LUTHER  LEE  BERNARD 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

A 

\  ' 


Published  March  1911 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTION *  i 

II.  THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING 10 

III.  THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  ACT 29 

IV.  THEORIES  OF  THE  END  OF  ACTIVITY 44 

V.  THEORIES  OF  THE  END  OF  ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  ...  65 

VI.  THE  ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW  OF  SOCIETY       .       .  78 

VII.   CONCLUSIONS  AND  IMPLICATIONS  88 


iii 


239387 


I.    INTRODUCTION 

THE      PROBLEM      STATED. SCOPE     OF      CRITICISM. ORIGIN      AND 

FUNCTION     OF     UTILITARIANISM. LIMITATIONS     OF     UTILI- 
TARIANISM.  CRITICISM      OF      CURRENT      PSYCHOLOGY     AND 

ETHICS. THE     NEW     VIEWPOINT. CONSEQUENT     REVISION 

OF  VALUES. PLAN  OF  TREATMENT 

So  much  has  been  written  concerning  the  evils  of  individual- 
ism and  the  mistakes  of  the  hedonistic  psychology  and  utilitarian 
ethics,  without  suggesting  a  satisfactory  means  of  curing  these 
evils  or  correcting  these  mistakes,  that  one  is  forced  to  believe 
that  something  is  wrong  with  the  method  of  attack.  One 
reason  for  this  failure  may  be  that  the  significance  of  utilitarian- 
ism as  a  stage  in  the  development  of  social  theory  has  not  yet 
been  rightly  comprehended  and  that  we  do  not  adequately  fore- 
see what  should  be  the  next  step  in  our  social  philosophy  and 
policy.  This  study  is  an  attempt,  (i)  to  throw  utilitarianism 
into  perspective  with  the  wider  social  forces  and  with  the  philo- 
sophical and  psychological  theory  of  its  time  and  our  time; 
(2)  to  show  that  the  main  current  of  present-day  social  theory, 
and  likewise  of  ethical  theory  so  far  as  it  is  social  rather  than 
theological  and  absolutistic  in  character,  is  largely  an  outgrowth 
of  utilitarianism,  or  at  least  may  be  grouped  in  close  connec- 
tion with  it;  (3)  to  argue  that  we  cannot  escape  the  limitations 
imposed  by  a  utilitarian  ethics  and  by  a  hedonistic  psychology 
upon  our  social  policy  until  we  reconstruct  our  system  of  social 
values,  until  we  abandon  the  individual  as  the  measure  of  all 
things  social,  and  fix  upon  the  group,  even  the  widest  conceiv- 
able group  possessing  solidarity,  as  the  unity  which  lives,  acts, 
and  progresses  or  deteriorates.  Such  a  change  in  emphasis 
obviously  involves  a  reconstruction  of  our  current  psychology 
and  ethics ;  for  these  two  sciences  as  now  written  are  essentially 
individualistic,  and  hence  impotent  so  far  as  contribution  to  a 
constructive  sociology  and  social  policy  is  concerned. 


2  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

Only  an  outline  of  the  argument  can  be  presented  within 
the  present  limits,  but  it  can  be  stated  clearly  and  consistently 
enough,  it  is  hoped,  to  make  a  point  of  departure,  as  well  as 
furnish  a  basis  for  criticism.  The  second  and  third  chapters 
of  the  study,  on  "The  Neural  Correlate  of  Feeling"  and  "The 
Cause  of  the  Act,"  have  been  included,  because  the  influence  of 
feeling  upon  social  activity  has  been  and  yet  is  a  central  problem 
in  the  development  of  social  and  ethical  theory,  though  the  rela- 
tionship has  been  but  unsatisfactorily  worked  out.  In  England 
it  has  been  an  academic  problem  since  the  time  of  Hobbes.1 
This  problem  came  particularly  to  the  fore  among  the  utilita- 
rians and,  though  somewhat  obscured  and  below  the  surface, 
has  by  no  means  been  wanting  to  the  neo-  and  idealistic  utilita- 
rians and  the  other  modern  ethical  individualists  who  would 
disclaim  utilitarian  parentage  or  connection.  It  has  also,  as  a 
problem,  divided  the  attention  of  the  socialistic  writers  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  who,  quite  conceivably,  were  not  able  to 
throw  off  the  prevailing  psychology  and  ethics  of  their  time; 
though  they  were  checks  upon,  and  largely  in  contradiction 
with,  their  social  policy.  The  greater  portion  of  the  critical 
parts  of  this  study  deals  with  the  utilitarians  and  their  succes- 
sors and  predecessors,  because  they  have  been  the  center  of 
modern  English  and  American  social  policy  and  social  and 
ethical  theory.2  Short  excursions  are  made  into  related  fields  to 

1  Cf.  Sidgwick,  History  of  Ethics,  163. 

2  In   Germany  there   has  been   a   different   theoretical  basis,   that   of  a   state 
philosophy,  which  was  at  the  same  time  essentially  a  moral  philosophy  (Rechts- 
philosophie).     Cf.    Small,   The   Cameralisms.     The  hedonistic  and   utilitarian  phi- 
losophies,   however,    did    enter    Germany,    largely    from    the    English    of    Hobbes. 
Locke,    and    Hume   and   their   successors,    perhaps    mainly   by   way    of    Helvetius 
and    Rousseau    and     their    contemporaries,     through     Schiller,     Goethe,     Fichte, 
Lotze,    and    others.      Professor    Small    has    also    found    indications    of    German 
contact    in    the    eighteenth    century    with    Hume    and    his    contemporaries.      In 
France,    Helvetius   took   much    from    Hobbes,   while   the    intellectual   connections 
of   Rousseau  with   Locke  are   well    known.      The   main   current   of   social   theory 
and   policy    in   France,    because    of    the    failure    consistently    to    carry    out    early 
democratic    declarations,    did    not    get    beyond    this    early    hedonism    over    into 
the  English  phase  of  utilitarianism   of  the  first  half   of  the  nineteenth   century, 
except    in    a   partial    degree    in    some    of    the    socialists    of    whom    Fourier    and 
Proudhon   are   types.     The   individualism   and  hedonism   of   French   socialism   of 


INTRODUCTION  3 

give  a  completer  account  of  the  process  of  thought.  No  attempt 
will  be  made,  however,  to  cover  the  whole  ground,  or  to  give  a 
history  of  the  development  of  utilitarian  ethics.  Space  permits 
only  the  selection  of  types. 

Utilitarianism,  as  has  been  pointed  out,3  was  with  Bentham 
and  his  coworkers  and  immediate  followers  mainly  a  move- 
ment in  social  policy.  It  was  essentially  a  practical  reform 
movement  which  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
accomplished  great  political  results  in  England  by  way  of  insist- 
ing upon  equal  privileges  and  democratic  recognition  for  the 
masses.4  But  all  movements  of  social  policy,  if  they  do  not 
grow  directly  out  of  a  social  philosophy — which  perhaps  can 
never  wholly  account  for  them — must  create  a  social  phi- 
losophy to  justify  their  existence  and  interpret  their  aims  to 
the  masses  of  the  people  of  all  degrees.  Utilitarianism  could 
choose  as  the  psychological  bases  of  its  philosophy  either  the 
intuitionalism  of  the  church  philosophy,  or  the  empirical 
hedonism  of  the  free  lances,  coming  down  through  Hobbes, 

the  nineteenth  century  stands  out  in  strong  contrast  with  the  socialism  of 
Rodbertus,  Marx,  and  Engels  in  Germany,  though  there  was  an  undercurrent 
of  hedonistic,  "utilitarian,"  and  even  anarchistic  socialism  in  Germany,  as  in 
the  case  of  Weitling,  Lassalle,  and  others.  The  two  types  of  socialism  can 
also  be  distinguished  in  England,  though  its  hedonistic  and  utilitarian  affilia- 
tions were  predominant  there,  as  in  Morris,  Bax,  Ruskin,  and  others,  mainly 
because  there  was  no  distinct  Rechtsphilosophie,  grown  out  of  a  traditional  gov- 
ernmental and  social  policy  (Cameralism'),  as  in  Germany.  The  intuitionalistic 
and  theological  line  of  thought  held  somewhat  of  this  latter  relation  in  England, 
though  even  it  was  individualistic  rather  than  social  or  paternalistic  in  its  view- 
point. Cf.  Small,  The  Cameralists ;  Sidgwick,  History  of  Ethics  ($d  ed.),  chap, 
iv;  Helvetius,  De  I' esprit,  discours  iii,  esp.  pp.  292,  324,  325  (ed.  Paris,  1758); 
Hobbes,  Leviathan  (ed.  Molesworth),  40  ff . ;  Biisch,  Geldumlauf,  Introduction, 
et  passim;  Kirkup,  History  of  Socialism;  Ely,  Modern  French  and  German 
Socialism ;  Spargo,  Socialism,  chap,  ii ;  Martineau,  Types  of  Ethical  Theory, 
(3d  ed.),  II;  Wright,  The  Ethical  Significance  of  Pleasure,  Feeling,  and  Happi- 
ness in  Modern  Non-Hedonistic  Systems. 

3  Cf.  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  287;  Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  361; 
Sidgwick,  History  of  Ethics,  236  ff. ;  Mill,  "Bentham,"  Dissertations  and  Dis- 
cussions, I,  355  ff. 

*  Bentham's  two  leading  democratic  principles  were :  The  "greatest  happi- 
ness of  all  those  whose  interest  is  in  question,"  and  Everyone  to  count  for  one, 
and  only  for  one.  Cf.  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation,  chap,  i,  sec.  i,  note. 


4  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

Locke,  Hume,  Helvetius,  Hartley,  and  others.5  Intuition- 
alism was  aristocratic,  just  as  the  church  was  generally  opposed 
to  social  reforms.  So  the  democratic-individualistic  hedonism 
of  the  free  thinkers  came  to  be  the  basis  of  the  utilitarian  social 
policy  just  as  it  had  earlier  been  that  of  the  "liberty,  equality, 
fraternity"  philosophy  of  democracy  in  France  and  America. 
In  fact,  utilitarianism,  in  common  with  the  democratic  phi- 
losophy of  the  time,  was  a  more  or  less  conscious  demand  that 
each  individual  should  be  given  a  share  in  the  egoistic  and 
hedonic  satisfactions  which  the  social  system  afforded. 

Most  thinkers  of  the  present  regard  the  doctrines  of  utili- 
tarianism as  put  forth  by  Bentham  and  his  immediate  follow- 
ers, like  the  doctrines  of  democracy  of  Rousseau  and  Schiller 
and  their  followers,  as  overthrown.  But  the  spirit  of  utili- 
tarianism still  lives  and  corrupts  our  social  philosophy  and  policy. 
Important  as  were  its  earlier  services,  it  now  exerts  an  unsalu- 
tary  influence  in  a  democratic  era,  because  it  is  essentially 
individualistic;  because  it  aims  primarily  at  democratic  egois- 
tic satisfaction  rather  than  at  democratic  social  conservation; 
because  it  is,  despite  its  emphasis  upon  a  democratic  distribu- 
tion of  privilege  and  satisfaction,  destructive  rather  than  con- 
structive. Its  influence  is  still  manifest  in  the  reigning  social 
theory  and  policy.  And  a  more  productive  and  long-sighted 
social  policy  and  theory  cannot  be  substituted  so  long  as  we 
retain  our  present  individualistic  psychology  and  ethics  as  their 
bases. 

At  the  present  time  psychology  is  essentially  solipsistic.  As 
a  science  it  recognizes  only  conscious  processes,6  and  centers 

5Cf.  Sidgwick,  History  of  Ethics,  163,  204,  224,  236  ff. ;  Locke,  Essay  Con- 
cerning Human  Understanding,  Bk.  IV;  Helvetius,  op.  cit.;  Hartley,  Man; 
Stephen,  English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  II,  80  ff. ;  Martineau, 
op.  cit.,  Part  II,  Bk.  II,  branch  i. 

8  Cf.  McDougall,  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology,  3,  15;  also  Physio- 
logical Psychology,  i,  2.  McDougall,  though  he  first  made  this  criticism,  has 
not  pointed  out  the  most  effective  way  in  which  a  new  psychology  can  be 
written.  He  lays  too  much  stress  upon  a  theory  of  the  instincts  and  emotions, 
which  he  thereby  raises  almost  to  the  rank  of  entities.  The  more  fruitful  line  of 
development,  it  would  seem,  is  in  the  direction  of  the  study  of  the  cortex 
and  the  lower  nervous  system  as  a  mechanism,  i.e.,  of  conduct,  in  order  to  get 


INTRODUCTION  5 

its  treatment  about  a  highly  sophisticated  and  unreal  self,7 
which  actually  functions  only  in  the  most  limited  sphere  of 
social  activity.  The  significance  of  the  work  of  the  students 
of  "abnormal"  psychology  and  of  the  psychology  of  "sugges- 
tion" and  physiological  and  comparative  psychology  has  not 
been  apprehended  by  the  orthodox  psychologists  as  yet.  They 
have  not  taken  over  these  data  into  their  conventional  text- 
books. When  they  do  so  these  treatises  will  be  revolutionized, 
and  the  self,  the  socius,  the  individual,  will  be  defined  in 
such  terms  that  the  sociologist  will  recognize  it.  The  solip- 
sistic  nature  of  this  self  will  disappear  and  the  self  will  come 
to  be  viewed  as  a  factor  subject  to  control  in  an  objective 
social  situation.8  Ethics  also  is  individualistic  in  its  evaluations, 
limiting  the  definition  of  moral  activity  to  include  only  the  field 

at  the  nature  and  functioning  of  all  types  of  activity  processes,  conscious  and 
unconscious.  At  all  events  this  would  prevent  us  from  making  of  consciousness 
a  self -sufficient  entity,  instead  of  a  means  to  adjustment  to  nature,  as  Professor 
Judd  has  done.  Cf.  "The  Evolution  of  Consciousness,"  Psychological  Review 
(March,  1910),  91  ff.  For  definitions  of  psychology  bearing  out  the  assertion 
in  the  text,  see  James,  Psychology,  I,  i  ;  Sully,  The  Human  Mind,  I,  i  ; 
Wundt,  Outlines  of  Psy.  (tr.  Judd),  23;  Titchener,  Outlines  of  Psy.,  6;  Stout, 
Manual  of  Psy.,  4 ;  Thorndike,  Elements  of  Psy.,  i  ;  Hoffding,  Outlines  of  Psy. 
(tr.  Lowndes),  i ;  Angell,  Psychology,  i  ;  Baldwin,  Handbook  of  Psy.  (S.  and  I.), 
8;  etc. 

7  For  definitions  and  descriptions  of  this  solipsistic  self,  see  Baldwin,  op.  cit. 
(S.  and  L),  67,   (F.  and  W.),   170;   Angell,  Psy.,  396;   Hoffding,   op.   cit.,   136; 
Thilly,  Philos.  Rev.,  XIX,  32;  Stout,  op.  cit.,  517;  Titchener,  op.  cit.,  301  ;  Wundt, 
op.  cit.,  242;  James,  op.  cit.,  291,  293,  301;   Sully,  op.  cit.,  481;  etc. 

8  G.  H.  Mead,  Journal  of  Phil.,  Psy.  and  Sci.  Methods  (Mar.  31,  1910),  174, 
has  attempted  to   remove  this  solipsistic  character  of  the  self  of  psychology  by 
insisting  upon  an  initially  social  individual   (a  conception  which,  in  some  form 
or  other,   goes  back  at  least   as   far  as   the   Greek   philosophers,   and   to   Adam 
Smith  and  his  contemporaries  among  the  moderns),  stating  the  matter,  however, 
from   the   standpoint   of   consciousness    alone    and   thus   from    the    subjectivistic 
standpoint  of  the  conventional  psychologist.     In  the  same  article  he  rejects  the 
idea  that  psychology  should  accept  the  objective   definition  of  the  social  object 
or   socius   which   the   social    sciences   offer.      However,    the   psychologists   of   the 
unconscious    and   relatively    unconscious    processes    and   the    social    psychologists, 
dealing  with  the  same  material,  are  undermining  the  artificial  and  conventional 
psychology    of   the   highly   conscious   processes,    and   will    assist   in    securing   the 
adoption  of  the  objective  and  social  viewpoint  in  treating  of  neural  and  activity 
processes,  whether  conscious  or  unconscious. 


6  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

of  volition,  that  is,  of  conscious  choice.9  This  is  the  old  limi- 
tation which  justified  retributive  punishment,  and  is  wholly 
apart  from  the  spirit  of  the  most  enlightened  social  practice 
of  the  present.  Manifestly  we  need  an  ethics  which  will  take 
account  of  the  act,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously  per- 
formed, in  relation  to'  both  its  remote  and  immediate  social 
results.  In  such  an  ethics  ''intention,"  that  is,  consciousness 
of  one's  tendency  to  act  in  a  certain  direction,  will  figure  only 
as  an  aid  to  prevention.  The  act  will  be  judged  morally,  that 
is,  with  reference  to  its  social  meaning,  and  treated  construct- 
ively, on  the  basis  of  its  discoverable  causes.  Consciousness 
will  not  figure  as  an  entity  or  absolute  in  this  causation,  as  it 
does  in  present  ethical  theory,  but  merely  as  one  of  the  most 
obvious  and  effective  points  at  which,  by  enlisting  the  addi- 
tional asset  of  the  individual's  attention,  we  can  begin  to  work 
more  successfully  preventively  and  reformatively  and  edu- 
cationally.10 This  is  to  say  that  conduct  will  be  judged  objec- 
tively, when  it  is  judged  scientifically  and  socially.11 

Our  present-day  psychology  and  ethics  then  are  essentially 
of  the  individualistic  type  which  furnished  the  basis  of  the 
old  utilitarian  and  pseudo-democratic  theory.  So  long  as  we 

9Cf.  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  201,  202  ff.,  250,  as  a  most  recent  example. 
Professor  Dewey  is  responsible  for  these  passages. 

10  This  is  not  to  say,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
bring  as  many  of  his  activities  as  possible  into   the   consciousness   of  the  indi- 
vidual as  a  means  to  social  control.     It  is  rather  a  plea  for  the  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  most  of  our  activities  are  and  always  must  be  on  a  more  or  less 
unconscious    and    habitual   basis,    and    hence    of   the    necessity    for    a   psychology 
which  will  make  provision  for  the  analysis  and  control  of  these  activities.     Pro- 
fessor   Judd,    op.    cit.,    especially    pp.    88,    89,    has    defended    the    limitation    of 
psychology   to   the  field   of   consciousness.      He   appears   not   to   have   understood 
the  point   at   issue.      McDougall's  demand,   which   he   so   strongly   criticizes    (pp. 
88,   89),   and   the   one   made   here,   are   that   psychologists   broaden   their   subject 
so  as  to  afford  a  method  for  bringing  all  activities  directly  or  indirectly  under 
either  individual  or  social   (collectivistic)   conscious  control. 

11  Cf.  an   excellent  paper  by   Professor   Ellwood,   "The   Sociological   Basis   of 
Ethics,"  International  Journal  of  Ethics  (April,  1910),  314  ff.     Professor  Ellwood 
argues  here  in  a  general  way  for  an  objective  and  sociological  basis  for  ethics, 
as  does  Professor  Small,  General  Sociology,  33  ff.,  and  Part  V,  and  elsewhere. 
It  is  doubtful,  however,  if  either  has  seen  all   the   implications   of   limiting  the 
scope  of  moral  activity  to  the  field  of  consciousness  and  volition. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

retain  them  they  will  hinder  the  development  of  a  consistent 
social  theory  which  can  be  used — as  a  means  of  justification 
and  communication — for  the  basis  of  a  constructive  and  crea- 
tive social  policy.  But  if  we  rid  ourselves  of  them,  evidently 
it  must  be  accomplished  by  means  of  bringing  a  new  view- 
point into  social  and  ethical  science,  the  objective  view- 
point. The  best  results  were  not  possible  from  such  an 
objective  criterion,  until  we  collected  a  considerable  fund  of 
accurate  information  about  the  working  of  the  social  organ- 
ism12 or  of  society  as  a  whole,  until  we  measured  and  defined 
a  considerable  number  of  social  processes,  and  thus  became 
able  to  define  in  a  provisional  way  the  socius  or  social  object. 
Thanks  to  the  work  of  the  social  technologists,  the  social 
psychologists,  and  other  heretical  psychologists  (however  de- 
fective parts  of  their  work  are),  we  have  already  made  a 
beginning  in  this  objective  and  constructive  study  of  social 
processes.  Men  of  affairs  in  government  and  practical  activi- 

12  The  term  "social  organism"  will  be  used  more  or  less  in  this  study  to 
indicate  the  unitary,  vital,  and  functioning  nature  of  social  groups,  and  here  of 
the  largest  group  which  we  can  characterize  as  being  in  some  degree  a  unity 
of  social  functions,  as  possessing  solidarity ;  and  such  can  now  be  said  of  practi- 
cally all  mankind  in  some  aspects  of  living.  This  usage  must  not  be  confounded 
with  the  biological  and  structural  analogy  of  Spencer  and  his  early  continental 
imitators.  The  term  as  here  employed  is  primarily  functional  in  its  meaning 
and  is  used  because  it  implies  a  unity  of  functioning,  a  mutual  dependence  grow- 
ing constantly  greater  with  social  development,  which  cannot  be  expressed  by 
such  an  indefinite  and  non-descriptive  term  as  "social  process."  To  define  the 
"social  process"  merely  in  terms  of  "the  interaction  of  individuals"  or 
socii,  is  analogous  to  stopping  with  the  older  natural  philosophers  who,  before 
the  formulation  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  accounted  for  movement  in  the 
physical  world  as  the  "continual  flux  of  matter,"  i.e.,  the  interaction  of  atoms, 
or  of  whatever  elements  the  philosophers  conceived  matter  as  composed.  As  the 
law  of  gravitation  established  how  matter  moves,  so  must  a  functional  and  intelli- 
gent statement  of  the  social  process  be  in  terms  of  the  movement  or  tendency 
of  that  process  and  not  leave  it  "at  loose  ends."  The  Group  Struggle  theorists 
state  it  in  terms  of  increasing  co-operation  (cf.  Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  und  Zweck 
der  Politik,  sees.  63  ff.),  and  others  define  it  in  terms  of  growth  of  specialization 
and  division  of  function  or  labor  (cf.  Durkheim,  De  la  division  du  travail  social, 
and  Pioger,  La  vie  so  dale,  42  ff.).  The  point  is  the  same.  It  emphasizes  the 
growth  in  essential  or  organic  unity  of  the  group  in  the  co-operative  struggle 
for  survival.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  group  is  organic,  that  society  is  an 
organism. 


8  AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

ties  have  always  made  large  use  of  the  objective  method. 
They  have  defined  or  assumed  their  social  objects  and  have 
built  upon  them — whether  with  good  or  bad  results,  depend- 
ing largely  upon  the  validity  and  accuracy  of  their  defi- 
nitions and  assumptions.  It  is  the  function  of  a  valid  and 
accurate  social  science  to  make  these  definitions  more  definite. 
In  this  work  a  truly  functional  psychology  can  be  of  the 
greatest  service. 

With  the  coming  of  this  objective  treatment  of  the  socius 
or  social  object  and  of  the  social  processes,  we  may  expect  revo- 
lutions in  our  way  of  thinking  and  in  our  social  policy.  We 
may  expect  social  conservation,  instead  of  the  individual  demo- 
cratic gratification  of  utilitarianism  and  of  the  old  pseudo- 
democracy,  to  be  the  ideal  of  practice.  This  conservation  will 
of  necessity  be  in  the  nature  of  the  strengthening  and  improve- 
ment of  the  whole  social  organism,  of  the  whole  social  process. 
The  conscious  exertion  of  individuals  must  be  directed  toward 
the  survival,  growth,  and  perfection  of  the  race  with  all  that 
this  implies  and  toward  the  development  of  a  scientifically  deter- 
mined and  controlled  social  organization  which  will  contribute 
to  this  end.13  Such  an  organization  of  effort  presupposes 
an  adequate  system  of  social  control,  a  social  control  based 
upon  popular  will  and  sanction,  but  coercive  where  the  con- 
sciously and  scientifically  determined  ideal  for  the  race  is  dis- 
regarded or  violated,  purposely  or  accidentally. 

The  detail  and  data  for  the  argument  that  our  traditional 
and  still  dominant  ethical  and  social  theory  remains  essentially 
individualistic  and  hedonistic  (subjectivistic)  in  viewpoint,  and 
for  the  necessity  of  reconstructing  this  viewpoint  with  its  impli- 
cations for  social  control,  constitute  the  body  of  this  study.  It 

13  Ellwood,  op.  cit.,  324,  says,  "The  general  trend  of  the  development  of 
scientific  knowledge  of  human  society  is  to  establish  three  standards  or  norms, 
all  of  which  have  ethical  implications :  social  survival,  social  efficiency,  and 
social  harmony."  The  only  one  of  these  three  norms  which  he  explains,  however, 
is  "survival,"  which  would  appear  to  be  the  ultimate  standard  or  test  of  an 
intelligent  social  activity.  Even  if  we  explain  the  growth  of  society  as  increas- 
ing co-operation,  we  must  explain  co-operation  finally  in  terms  of  survival. 
Cf.  Kropotkin,  Mutual  Aid  as  a  Factor  in  Evolution;  also  Small,  op.  cit.,  38-39. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

is  held  that,  so  long  as  individualism  and  subjectivism  dominate, 
as  they  now  do,  our  psychological  and  ethical  theory,  a  scientific 
sociology  and  a  constructive  social  policy  will  find  themselves 
constantly  opposed  and  weakened.  It  is  contended  that  the 
solution  of  the  problem  lies  in  a  change  of  emphasis  from 
the  old  individualistic,  though  democratic,  theory  of  egoistic 
satisfactions  to  an  objective  socially  constructive  policy.  The 
treatment  of  the  subject  has  been  divided  into  three  gen- 
eral sections.  The  first  deals  with  the  cause  of  the  act,  and 
attempts  to  determine  what  is  the  actual  relation  of  feeling  to 
the  act.  The  second  examines  the  theory  that  pleasure  or 
happiness  is  the  end  or  object  of  activity  in  its  social  relations, 
including  a  critical  examination  of  a  number  of  the  utilitarian 
and  hedonistic  and  other  theories.  The  third  is  concerned 
with  the  object  of,  and  the  sanction  for,  a  change  in  the  theo- 
retical criterion  of  the  social  control  of  activity. 


II.     THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING 

FORMER  VAGUENESS  OF  THE  TERM  FEELING. EARLIER  ATTEMPTS 

AT  CORRELATION. THEORY  OF  THE  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING 

MODES. — RELATIVITY    OF    FEELING 

In  order  to  discuss  intelligently  the  problems  in  this  and  the 
following  chapters  it  will  be  necessary  to  devote  most  of  the 
present  chapter  to  an  examination  of  the  nature  of  feeling. 

Even  up  to  the  present  time  most  psychologists  have  pretty 
generally  confounded  feeling  with  sensory  and  ideational  con- 
sciousness. The  older  writers  used  feeling  as  a  general  term  for 
all  consciousness,1  and  even  some  of  our  later  psychologists  so 
employ  the  term  either  wholly  or  in  part.2  No  fact  in  modern 
psychological  analysis  is  more  patent  than  this  confusion  of 
feeling  and  the  various  forms  of  sensory  and  ideational  con- 
sciousness. Though  various  writers  had  at  different  times 
pointed  out  that  the  same  sensory  processes  and  especially  the 

1  Hobbes,    Helvetius,    Bain,    Spencer    may    be    mentioned    as    examples.      To 
Hobbes  there  were  only  two  feelings  in  this  general  sense  of  all  mental  states 
mentioned  above,  appetite,  desire,  delight,  pleasure,  or  joy,  i.e.,  motion  toward 
an  object,  on  the  one  hand,  and  aversion,  displeasure,  pain,  or  grief,  i.e.,  motion 
"fromward"  the  object,  on  the  other  hand  ("Leviathan,"  Works  [Molesworth  ed.], 
Ill,  42-43).     Of  these  feelings  or  emotions,  however,  he  recognizes  two  classes, 
those  of  the  senses  and  those  of  the  mind.     To  those  of  the  senses  he  applied 
the  two  general  terms  pleasure  and  pain,  and  to  those  of  the  mind,  the  general 
terms    joy    and    grief.      Since    the    above    distinction    has    no    qualitative    value 
(Locke,    Essay    Concerning    Human    Understanding,    Bk.    II,    chap,    xx),    it    is 
plain  that  Hobbes  identified  sensational  and  ideational   consciousness.     In  order 
to  take  care  of  forms  of  consciousness  and  activity  which  would  not  come  under 
this    simple    classification    he    added    to    this    classification    such    psychical    cate- 
gories as  hope,  despair,  fear,  courage,  anger,  benevolence,  ambition,  magnanimity, 
jealousy,  curiosity,  etc.   (op.  cit.,  43   ff.).     This  method  of  providing  for  special 
cases  is   still   in  vogue,  though   in   much   less   degree,   among  psychologists.      Cf. 
McDougall,  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology,  chap,  v ;  Marshall,  Pain,  Pleasure, 
and  Aesthetics,  64  ff. 

2  Gustav  Spiller,  The  Mind  of  Man  (London,   1902),  is  an  extreme  example, 
though   traces    of   such   confusion    can   be    found    in   James,    Principles    of   Psy., 
Dewey,  Psy.,  and  others. 

10 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  II 

same  sensory  experiences,  ideas,  and  images  were  not  always 
accompanied  by  the  same  degrees  of  pleasantness  and  unpleasant- 
ness, or  that  the  feeling  tone  might  sometimes  be  one  and  some- 
times the  other,3  it  was  not  until  the  types  of  sensations  had 
been  analyzed  and  abstracted  beyond  the  traditional  five,  through 
the  discoveries  of  neurology  and  experimental  psychology,  that 
it  was  possible  to  place  the  distinction  on  a  scientific  basis.4  The 
discovery  of  separate  pain  sense  organs  has  furthered  this  dis- 
tinction. For  some  writers,  however,  this  further  analysis  has 
had  the  effect  of  strengthening  the  confusion  in  their  minds 
regarding  pain  and  unpleasantness,5  and  it  has  led  others  to 
regard  sex  sensation  as  the  original  and  fundamental  type  of 
pleasurable  feeling.6  But  for  the  great  majority  of  psycholo- 
gists these  discoveries  of  separate  sense  organs  have  served  to 
bring  out  more  clearly  the  fact  not  adequately  understood  before, 
that  the  various  sensory  and  ideational  processes  are  not  con- 
stant and  fixed  correlates  of  either  pleasantness  or  unpleasantness. 
Based  on  these  distinctions  the  more  recent  psychologists 
have  come  to  regard  feeling  as  a  separate  type  of  consciousness, 
as  neither  sensory,7  nor  ideational.8  It  is  variously  accounted  for 
by  these  writers  as  a  functional  correlate  of  the  bodily,  con- 
scious, or  neural  processes,  i.e.,  as  indicating  that  the  organism 

*  E.g.,  Spencer,  Prin.  of  Psy.  (New  York,  1892),  I,  287. 

4  Professor  Max  Meyer,  Psy.  Rev.,  XI,  103  ff.,  claims  at  least  sixteen  sepa- 
rate types  of  sensations,  with  possibilities  of  more. 

5H.  M.  Stanley,  The  Evolutionary  Psychology  of  Feeling  (London,  1895), 
chap,  ii,  holds  that  pain  was  the  most  primitive  form  of  consciousness. 

*  Meyer  refers  to   Lagerborg  and  others   in  this  connection,  Psy.  Rev.,  XV, 
203  ff. 

7  Stumpf,  "Ueber  Gefuhlsempfindungen,"  Zeitsch.  filr  Psychologic,  Bd.  44, 
S.  1-49,  however,  regards  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  as  sensations.  Lotze, 
Microcosmus  (tr.  Hamilton  and  Jones),  I,  243,  689,  takes  a  similar  view,  as  does 
also  L.  F.  Ward  at  times,  Psychic  Factors  of  Civilisation,  38,  42  ff.  Titchener,  The 
Psychology  of  Feeling  and  Attention,  290  ff.,  criticizes  the  views  of  Stumpf  and 
others,  holding  the  sensational  view  as  does  Meyer,  op.  cit. 

8Cf.  Angell,  Psy.,  272  ff . ;  Judd,  Psy.,  194;  Titchener,  Outlines  of  Psy.,  101, 
108,  114;  Ribot,  "Sur  la  nature  du  plaisir,"  Revue  philosophique,  LXVIII,  181, 
183  ;  Meyer,  op.  cit. 


12  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

as  a  whole  is  functioning  successfully  or  unsuccessfully;9  as  a 
sign  that  the  vitality  or  health  of  the  organism  is  being  built 
up  or  lowered;10  or  as  connected  with  the  use  of  stored-up 
nervous  energy  in  less  or  greater  quantities  than  the  total  supply 
available.11  All  these  explanations  assume  that  the  feeling 
processes  are  the  correlates  of  the  whole  bodily  process,  though 
Marshall  makes  some  exceptions  to  this  view  in  pointing  out 
that  some  organ  may  be  functioning  "successfully/'  i.e.,  with 
pleasurable  results,  when  the  organism  as  a  whole  is  not  in  such 
a  favorable  situation.12  It  has  also  been  observed  that  there 
may  be  pleasantness  or  unpleasantness  when  the  condition  of  the 
organism  or  the  nature  of  the  adjustment  is  exactly  opposite 
what  these  formulae  declare  it  to  be.13  Again,  while  there  is 
undoubtedly  some  correspondence  between  feeling  modes  and 
efficient  functioning  in  a  racial  sense,  there  is  not  necessarily 
such  a  correspondence  on  a  habitual  or  social  basis.14  James 
Ward  appears  to  have  approached  more  nearly  to  a  true  state- 
ment of  the  relation  when  he  reduced  the  correlation  to  terms 
of  "effective"  attention.15  This  statement,  however,  is  indefinite, 
since  consciousness  is  a  variable  and  relative  manifestation  de- 
pendent upon  neural  processes,  and  it  lacks  content,  leaving  the 
meaning  of  the  term  "effective"  ambiguous.  Some  of  the  most 
effective  attention,  so  far  as  objective  adjustment  consequences 

9  Meakin,  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct,  55;  Dewey,  "Theory  of  Emotion," 
Psy.  Rev.,  II,  31;  Simmel,  Einleitung  in  die  Moralwissenschaft,  I,  388;  Judd, 
Psy.,  196-97. 

"Ribot,  op.  cit.,  180  ft. ;  Hoffding,  op.  cit.,  273;  Bain,  Mind  and  Body,  59; 
Spencer,  Prin.  of  Psy.,  I,  279  (New  York,  1876);  Titchener,  op.  cit.,  102; 
Royce,  Outlines  of  Psy.,  179. 

11  Marshall,  op.  cit.,  221. 

12  Ibid.,  264-65  ;  also  Meakin,  op.  cit.,  50. 

1S  Cf.  Angell,  op.  cit.,  275.  «  Cf.  Marshall,  op.  cit.,  352. 

'  "There  is  pleasure  in  proportion  as  a  maximum  of  attention  is  effectively 
exercised,  and  pain  in  proportion  as  such  effective  attention  is  frustrated  by 
distractions,  shocks,  or  incomplete  and  faulty  adaptations,  or  fails  of  exercise 
owing  to  the  narrowness  of  the  field  of  consciousness  and  the  slowness  and 
smallness  of  its  changes." — Art.  "Psychology,"  Encyc.  Britannica  (gth  ed.),  XX,  71. 
Marshall  (op.  cit.,  236,  262),  with  reservations,  and  Stout  (Manual  of  Psy.,  276), 
fully,  accept  this  view. 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  13 

are  concerned,  is  not  particularly  pleasurable,  as  in  the  labori- 
ous acquirement  of  skill  in  any  direction.  The  most  consider- 
able advance  in  the  theory  of  feeling,  however,  was  made  by 
Meyer  when  he  reduced  the  correlation  of  feeling  modes  from 
bodily  to  neural  processes.16  His  general  statement,  however,  is 
couched  in  mechanical  terms,  and  his  failure  to  recognize  the 
existence  of  two  fundamental  lines  of  development  in  the  nerv- 
ous system — a  fact  which  must  be  taken  into  account  in  deter- 
mining internal  neural  adjustment — has  made  it  necessary  for 
him  to  assume  a  rather  doubtful  differential  character  for  pain, 
bitter,  sour,  and  analogous  sensory  processes.17  Consequently 
these  numerous  exceptions  destroy  the  unity  of  his  theory. 

All  these  theories  of  the  correlate  of  feeling  have  something 
of  value  in  them  and  have  expressed  partial  truths.  The  earliest 
statement,  going  back  at  least  as  far  as  Hobbes  among  the 
moderns,18  and  to  Aristotle  among  the  ancients,19  recognizes  a 
more  or  less  stable  correspondence  between  the  vital  condition 
of  the  organism  and  its  feeling  modes.  The  development  of 
accuracy  of  statement  has  been  one  of  delimitation  and  specifica- 
tion of  the  terms  of  correlation,  arriving  at  a  consciousness 
correlate  in  the  formula  of  James  Ward,  and  at  a  neural  corre- 
late in  that  of  Meyer.  It  is  proposed  here  to  modify  Meyer's 
statement  on  the  basis  of  the  neurological  investigations  of 
Herrick,  Sherrington,  Parker,  and  others,  using  whatever  is 
valuable  in  the  other  statements  of  correlation,  in  an  attempt  to 
secure  an  adequate  functional  statement  of  the  correlation  of 

16  "The  nervous  correlate  of  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  must  be  some 
form  of  activity  in  the  higher  nerve  centers,  since  it  is  generally  admitted  that 
only  activities  in  the  higher  nerve  centers  are  accompanied  by  consciousness,  and 
pleasantness    and    unpleasantness    are    kinds    of    consciousness.      But    while    the 
correlate  of  sensation  is  the  nervous  current  itself,  the  correlate  of  pleasantness 
and  unpleasantness  is  the  increase  or  decrease  of  the  intensity  of  a  previously 
constant  current  if  the  increase  or  decreese  is   caused   by   a   force   acting  at  a 
point  other  than  the  point  of  sensory  stimulation." — "The  Nervous  Correlate  of 
Pleasantness  and  Unpleasantness,"  Psy.  Rev.,  XV,  307. 

17  Cf.  "The  Nervous  Correlate  of  Attention,"  Psy.  Rev.,  XV,  365   ff. 

18  Cf.  Leviathan,  loc.  cit.,  42. 

19  Spencer,  op.  cit.}  277,  makes  this  claim  for  Aristotle. 


14  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

feeling  modes,  and  thus  to  define  feeling  and  to  determine  its 
relation  to  the  act. 

In  formulating  an  adequate  and  functional  theory  of  the 
neural  correlate  of  feeling  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  account 
the  phylogeny  of  the  nervous  system.  There  are,  throughout 
the  scale  of  animal  development,  two  distinct  types  of  physio- 
logical functions :  ( i )  the  vegetative  or  visceral  functions,  con- 
nected with  the  inner  working  of  the  bodily  mechanism,  such 
as  nutrition,  circulation,  respiration,  and  (2)  the  exteroceptive 
functions,  concerned  with  the  adjustment  of  the  organism  as  a 
whole  to  outside  or  environmental  influences.20  These  two  types 
of  organic  functions,  in  rising  above  the  purely  tropic  type  of 
behavior,  developed  more  or  less  distinct  nervous  connections,21 
and  because  of  the  primary  importance  of  quick  movement  for 
the  preservation  of  the  organism  and  of  the  species,  the  latter 
type  of  functions  probably  developed  well-differentiated  nervous 
connections  and  integrating  centers  first  and  specialized  them  to 
a  greater  degree  than  the  former.  This  exteroceptive  nervous 
system  developed  in  the  service  of  the  animal  in  its  reactions  to 
external  stimuli.  Out  of  this  general  type  of  exteroceptive 
reaction  developed  the  various  peripheral  or  exteroceptive  sense 
organs,  such  as  those  of  a  cutaneous  nature — pain,  temperature, 
tactual,  chemical,  and  even  the  distance  receptors,  such  as  the 
sense  organs  of  sight  and  hearing.22  It  has  been  established  that 
the  mammalian  cerebral  cortex  has  developed  mainly  in  the  serv- 
ice of  the  distance  receptors  or  higher  exteroceptive  sense  organs 
of  sight  and  hearing,23  "which  have  dominated  and  set  the  direc- 
tion of  the  evolution  of  the  nervous  system  in  vertebrates."24 
Thus  the  brain  becomes  in  higher  animal  types  the  co-ordinating 
center  of  processes  arising  chiefly  from  peripheral  or  exterocep- 

20  Herrick,     "The     Evolution     of     Intelligence     and     Its     Organs,"     Science, 
XXXI,  7. 

21  Herrick,  "The   Relations  of  the  Central   and   Peripheral   Nervous    Systems 
in  Phylogeny,"  The  Anatomical  Record,  IV,  62. 

22  Ibid.,  62,  67,  68. 

23  Herrick,  "The  Relations  of  the  Central  and  Peripheral  Nervous  Systems  in 
Phylogeny,"  The  Anatomical  Record,  IV,  61. 

24  Herrick,  Science,  loc.  cit.,  8. 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  15 

tive  stimuli;'"5  "while  the  co-ordinating  centers  of  the  visceral 
system  are  partly  peripheral  in  the  sympathetic  ganglia  and 
partly  in  this  central  nervous  system.'"-  In  the  higher  and  more 
flexible  forms  of  nervous  organization,  where  the  tubular  or 
dorsal  nervous  organization  dominates,27  the  processes  of  the 
two  systems  are  capable  of  close  correlation  in  the  higher  brain 
centers.  Where  complex  or  conscious  control  is  necessary  all 
the  activity  tendencies  of  the  nervous  system  tend  to  be,  and 
for  the  most  part  are,  summated  in  the  cortex,  which  exists  for 
this  higher  function  of  correlation  rather  than  as  a  center  for 
definitely  specialized  activity.28 

Two  facts  of  primary  importance  for  the  theory  of  feeling 
correlates  are  to  be  noted  in  connection  with  the  phylogenetic 
development  of  the  nervous  system  or  systems.  The  first  is  that 
the  sex  functions  and  their  nervous  connections  developed  pri- 
marily as  a  part  of  the  visceral  functions  and  system.  In  the 
lowest  animal  forms  the  sex  and  vegetative  functions  are  very 
closely  related.  Parallel  with  the  development  of  the  feeding 
and  other  visceral  and  of  the  sexual  neural  processes  they  got 
more  specialized  connections  with  the  exteroceptive  nervous 
system  and  developed  increased  powers  of  correlation  with  the 
exteroceptive  system  in  the  cortex.29  But  the  neural  processes 
of  the  sex  organs  have  always  remained  predominantly  bound 
up  with  the  structure  and  functioning  of  the  visceral  or  intero- 
ceptive  nervous  system.  In  the  second  place,  the  exteroceptive 
nervous  system  originated  primarily  as  a  means  of  adapting  the 

25  Herrick  says,  "The  cerebellum  has  been  developed  from  the  somatic 
sensory  column  of  the  medulla  oblongata  as  the  chief  central  co-ordinating 
apparatus  of  the  proprioceptive  system." — Anatom.  Record,  loc.  cit.,  64.  See 
also  Sherrington,  The  Integrative  Function  of  the  Nervous  System,  lecture  ix. 

28  Herrick,  Anatom.  Record,  IV,  62. 
"Ibid.,  59. 

as"The  essence  of  cortical  function  is  correlation  and  a  cortical  center  for 
the  performance  of  a  particular  function  is  a  physiological  absurdity,  save  in 
the  restricted  sense  described  above,  as  a  nodal  point  in  a  very  complex  system 
of  associated  conducting  paths.  Those  reflexes  whose  simple  functions  can  be 
localized  in  a  single  center  have  their  mechanism  abundantly  provided  for  in 
the  brain  stem." — Herrick,  Science,  loc.  cit.,  15. 

29  Cf.  Herrick,  Anatom.  Record,  IV,  61,  and  Science,  XXXI,  8. 


1 6  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

organism  to  its  environment,  either  for  separating  it  from  con- 
ditions which  threatened  to  be  unfavorable  to  it  or  for  bringing 
it  in  contact  with  food,  warmth,  light,  etc.  Purely  peripheral 
stimulation,  because  of  the  predominatingly  skeletal  muscular 
connections  of  the  exteroceptive  system,  has  thus  always  re- 
sulted in  movement,  either  of  avoidance  or  of  receptivity.  The, 
union  of  interoceptive  or  visceral  processes  with  the  exterocep- 
tive or  peripheral  processes  has,  from  very  early  stages  of 
development,  led  to  receptive  movements,  as  in  the  case  of 
inclosure  and  assimilation  of  food.30  This  latter  type  of  move- 
ment will  take  place  more  effectively  if  the  connection  or  corre- 
lation between  the  two  types  of  processes  (the  exteroceptive 
and  the  interoceptive  processes)  is  made  in  the  cortex,  where 
sensory  stimuli  may  operate  to  a  greater  advantage,  especially 
in  the  higher  forms  of  animal  life.  But  an  equally  primitive 
function  of  peripheral  nervous  stimulation,  and  one  doubtless 
even  more  important  at  later  stages  of  development,  was  dis- 
turbance of  the  equilibrium  of  the  organism,  looking  toward 
an  avoiding  reaction.  This  type  of  nervous  process  may,  in 
its  origin,  be  identified  in  general  with  that  which  in  higher 
organisms  we  find  ending  exteroceptively  in  the  pain  sense 
organ.  The  other  cutaneous  sense  organs,  with  their  neural 
connections,  have  probably  been  differentiated  off  primarily  from 
this  primitive  type,  as  have  also  the  distance  receptors  or  higher 
peripheral  sensory  processes  mentioned  above.  Taste  and  odor 
sense  organs  have  also  been  differentiated  in  this  way,  but  they 
have  acquired  or  have  retained  a  larger  proportion  of  visceral 
neural  connections  than  the  other  exteroceptive  sense  organs 
have.31 

30  Cf.  G.  H.  Parker,  "The  Origin  of  the  Nervous  System  and  Its  Appropria- 
tion of  Effectors,"  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  LXXV,  56,  137  ;  Ludwig  Edinger,  "The  Relations 
of  Comparative  Anatomy  to  Comparative  Psychology,"  Journal  of  Compar. 
Neurology  and  Psychol.,  XVIII,  437. 

w  Cf.  Herrick,  Anatom.  Record,  IV,  68.  Practical  evidence  of  this  is  to  be 
found  in  the  familiar  fact  that  odors  and  tastes  have  a  much  more  marked 
effect  upon  visceral,  glandular,  and  vascular  activities  than  sight,  hearing,  touch, 
or  temperature  have.  The  odor  (and  even  the  sight)  of  blood  also  appears 
frequently  to  have  a  tendency  to  stimulate  sexually,  because  of  the  close  visceral 
connections. 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  17 

The  method  by  which  the  various  types  of  exteroceptive 
sensory  processes  became  differentiated  from  the  more  primi- 
tive exteroceptive  avoiding  processes  was  by  means  of  lower- 
ing the  threshold  of  stimulation  for  the  sense  organs  which 
receive  what  are  later  tactual,  temperature,  etc.,  impressions. 
This  lowering  of  the  threshold  of  stimulation  in  the  sense  organs 
is  correlated  with  the  acquisition  of  more  direct  neural  connec- 
tion or  correlation  with  the  central  nervous  system  than  was 
provided  by  the  primitive  exteroceptive  reactive  apparatus,  for 
definite  or  selective  reactions.  But,  with  the  differentiation  of 
primary  centers  within  the  brain  for  these  different  sense  quali- 
ties, with  the  development  of  correlation  pathways  between  the 
centers,  and  with  the  further  elaboration  of  higher  correlation 
centers,  this  acquisition  of  more  direct  connections  and  of 
connections  with  more  highly  differentiated  centers  has  not 
destroyed  the  original  neural  connections  or  correlations  with 
the  general  avoiding  centers  or  processes,  as  is  proven  by  the  fact 
that  an  increased  stimulation  of  any  peripheral  sense  organ  or 
exteroceptor  other  than  a  pain  sense  organ  will  also  in  higher 
animal  forms  give  a  pain  reaction.  The  avoiding  or  pain  con- 
nections and  correlations  of  these  differentiated  processes  have 
simply  become  relatively  more  indirect,  while  the  original  type  of 
avoiding  or  pain  process  has  remained  unchanged  structurally 
and  has  retained  its  original  function.32  This  lowering  of  the 
threshold  of  stimulation,  and  the  acquisition  of  separate  connec- 
tions and  correlations  for  each  specific  kind  of  contact  or  cuta- 
neous receptors  and  distance  receptors,  as  distinct  from  the 
primary  undifferentiated  avoiding  or  pain  receptors,  has  made 
it  possible  to  have  correlations  of  various  exteroceptive  nervous 
processes  giving  rise  to  various  forms  of  consciousness  in  the 
higher  organisms  without  involving  pain,  though  pain  always 
lies  in  the  background  as  a  possibility  of  over-stimulation, 
fatigue,  etc. 

If  now  we  apply  the  general  principle  of  the  neural  corre- 
lation of  feeling  of  Meyer  to  this  theory  of  the  structure  and 

32 1  am  indebted  to  Professor  Herrick  for  the  suggestion  of  this  general 
structural  arrangement. 


1 8  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

development  of  the  nervous  processes  and  their  correlation  of 
Herrick,  Sherrington,  Parker,  and  others,  we  shall  see  that  the 
facts  are  taken  care  of  readily.  We  find  that  where  nervous 
processes  are  correlated,  i.e.,  where  on  the  one  hand  they 
supplement  each  other,  at  least  in  the  regions  of  the  cortex,  we 
have  the  feeling  mode  of  pleasantness,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
where  processes  interrupt  each  other,  at  least  in  the  cortex,  we 
have  the  feeling  mode  of  unpleasantness.  Feeling,  then,  as 
distinct  from  sensory  and  ideational  consciousness,  is  the  result 
of  the  correlation,  i.e.,  the  supplementation  or  interference  of 
nervous  processes  in  such  a  way  as  to  increase  or  to  diminish 
the  neural  activity  along  a  certain  or  given  pathway.  Where  a 
nervous  process  or  set  is  augmented  pleasantness  is  experienced, 
and  where  a  nervous  process  or  set  is  weakened  or  diminished 
there  is  unpleasantness.33  Accordingly  both  pleasantness  and 
unpleasantness  may  exist  in  the  same  organism  at  the  same 
time,  provided  different  nervous  sets  are  involved  in  the  adjust- 
ment process  or  more  than  one  adjustment  is  being  made.34 

33  It  is  not  necessary  to  raise  the  question  here  as  to  when  either  feeling  or 
sensory   consciousness   first   appeared   phylogenetically.      The   purpose    here   is   to 
show  certain  developmental  and  relational  facts  of  structure  and  functioning  in 
the    correlation    of    the    visceral,    exteroceptive,    and    ideational    (free    cortical) 
neural    processes,    which    will    serve    as    a    basis    for    the    theory    of    the    neural 
correlation  of  feeling  modes — whenever  and  wherever  in  the  development  process 
feeling   may   have    appeared.      It   is   not   here   maintained    that   the   existence    of 
sensory    neural    processes    or    receptors    necessarily    implies    sensation,    or    that 
correlation    (supplementation   and   interference)    of   processes   necessarily   implies 
feeling   at   earlier   stages   of   development   than   that   of   man.      The   presumption 
would  be  of  course  that  they  do.     Professor  Herrick  takes   the  view  that  con- 
sciousness   is    in    a    broad   sense    the    function    of   both    cortical    and    subcortical 
nervous   processes    (Science,    loc.    cit.,    17)    and    that   it    did    not    originate    as    a 
superimposition  upon  biological  processes,  but  as  a  part  of  the  general  organism 
in  adjustment  or  activity  (ibid.).     But,  since  we  know  that  almost  all  ideational 
and  imaginal  consciousness  comes  either  directly  or  indirectly  from  the  exercise 
of  the  higher  sensory  neural  processes,  and  especially  from  the  activity  of  the 
distance    receptors    (cf.    Herrick,    ibid.,    8),    the    admission    of    the    existence    of 
sensation   arising   from   primitive   peripheral   and    from   visceral   and   sex   neural 
sensory   processes    and   of   feeling   resulting   from    the    correlation    of    these    and 
other   processes   at   a   very   early   stage   would   not   involve    any    high    degree    of 
conscious  control  at  such  a  stage. 

34  Cf.   Ribot,   op.   cit.,    1 80;    Meyer,   Psy.  Rev.,   XV,    315;    Angell,   Psy.,   275; 
Titchener,  op.  cit.,  108. 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  19 

According  to  the  theory  of  the  nervous  system  here  accepted 
we  should  expect,  from  their  close  phylogenetic  connections,  that 
the  visceral  neural  processes,  such  as  those  of  digestion,  circu- 
lation, respiration,  etc.,  would,  when  working  properly,  tend  to 
supplement  each  other,  and  consequently  that  their  unimpeded 
action  would,  when  we  are  conscious  of  it,  produce  pleasant- 
ness. As  a  matter  of  fact  we  find  that  such  is  the  case.35  In 
the  same  way  sexual  neural  processes,  because  of  their  close  struc- 
tural connection  with  the  visceral  or  vegetative  neural  processes, 
tend  strongly  to  supplement  the  latter,  carrying  the  correlation 
into  the  cortex  and  involving  tactual,  temperature,  etc.,  sensory 
supplementation  .from  the  exteroceptive  system,  with  the  result 
that  sexual  activity  ordinarily  is  highly  pleasurable.  But  on 
the  other  hand  the  primitive  peripheral  or  exteroceptive  neural 
processes,  i.e.,  the  pain  sensory  neural  processes,  are  so  im- 
planted in  the  nervous  structure  phylogenetically  that  they  tend 
to  interrupt  the  visceral  or  interoceptive  neural  processes  when 
they  come  in  contact  with  them,  and  even  to  interrupt  the 
derivative  sensory  neural  processes  when  the  latter  run  over  from 
their  more  direct  connections  or  correlations  with  their  own 
immediate  instinctive  response  centers  or  cortical  correlations, 
i.e.,  when  stimulation  is  unduly  increased.  Consequently  stimu- 
lation of  the  pain  sense  organs  or  strong  stimulation  of  any 
peripheral  sense  organ  is  usually  unpleasant.36  The  fundamental 
inter ruptive  nature  of  the  pain  sensory  neural  processes  under 
strong  stimulation  makes  it  impossible  to  secure  a  correlation 
of  them  with  higher  neural  sensory  processes  or  with  visceral 
neural  processes  and  thus  to  make  a  high  degree  of  pain  pleas- 
urable.37 It  is  because  of  these  two  fundamental  types  of  cor- 

35  Digestion  tends  to  increase  circulation,  as  does  bodily  exercise.     Exercise 
promotes   both    a   strong   respiration   and   a   rapid   circulation    and   the    result   is 
distinctly  pleasurable,  if  all  the  processes  work  normally. 

36  Cases  in  which  slight  stimulation  of  pain  sense  organs  produces  apparently 
a  mild  degree  of  pleasantness  evidently  depend  upon  the  inhibition  or  assimila- 
tion of  the  pain  sensory  neural  processes  involved  by  some  visceral  or  periphe- 
ral neural  set. 

37  This   statement   of   the   neural   correlation   avoids   the   contradiction   which 
Meyer  had  to  meet  (cf.  Psy.  Rev.,  XV,  366),  to  the  effect  that  supplementation 


20  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

relation  of  visceral  or  vegetative  (and  sex)  and  pain  sensory 
neural  processes,  with  their  almost  invariably  pleasant  and 
unpleasant  feeling  results,  respectively,  that  feeding  and  sex 
activities  on  the  one  hand  and  pain  sensations  on  the  other  have 
been  so  stubbornly  and  almost  universally  identified  with 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  feeling  modes.38  The  explana- 
tion of  feeling  in  terms  of  neural  correlation  instead  of  in  terms 
of  sensory  or  ideational  consciousness  does  away  with  this  con- 
fusion. 

of  pain  processes  by  higher  sensory  or  ideational  neural  processes  may  tend  to 
make  pain  processes  the  correlates  of  a  high  degree  of  pleasantness.  According 
to  the  theory  here  developed,  supplementation  of  pain  and  visceral  (including 
sex)  neural  processes  by  the  higher  sensory  or  ideational  neural  processes  could 
never  take  place  independent  of  the  predominating  vegetative  or  interoceptive 
neural  set,  because  of  the  phylogenetic  origins  and  functions  of  pain  and  sex 
processes.  So  that  any  interference  with  or  supplementation  of  either  of  them 
would  cause  it  to  tend  only  to  have  a  diminished  or  increased  effect  of  its 
customary  kind. 

38  Such  a  confusion  of  terminology  and  of  thinking  exists  in  practically  all 
our  polite  literature  and  in  most  scientific  writing  where  the  relations  are  involved. 
Reasons  for  such  confusion  are :  the  fact  that  vegetative,  sex,  and  pain  sensory 
correlations  with  the  interoceptive  and  exteroceptive  neural  processes  being 
among  the  most  primitive  and  instinctive  and  hence  most  closely  correlated 
structurally  and  functionally,  pain  and  sex  sensations  and  activities  more  invari- 
ably correspond  to  unpleasant  and  pleasant  feeling  modes,  while  the  other 
sensory  and  ideational  neural  processes  vary  more  widely;  that  the  higher 
sensory  and  ideational  neural  processes  may  actually  connect  up  with  the  lower 
visceral  and  exteroceptive  neural  processes  so  as  to  produce  the  sensations  of 
the  latter  (as  in  suggestion)  ;  the  close  resemblance  between  these  lower  sensa- 
tions and  the  feeling  modes  to  which  they  usually  correspond,  while  the  higher 
sensory  and  ideational  experiences  differ  radically  from  the  feeling  modes  with 
which  they  instinctively,  habitually,  or  fortuitously  occur.  Arguments  against 
the  validity  of  such  confusion  are :  just  this  fact  that  a  variety  of  sensory 
experiences  occur  in  connection  with  apparently  the  same  feeling  modes ;  the 
fact  that  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  can  be  experienced  in  connection 
with  the  higher  sensory  and  ideational  neural  processes  and  the  lower  visceral 
neural  processes  without  calling  out  any  pain  or  sex  or  other  visceral  sensation 
whatever;  and  finally  the  fact  that  sensations  are  localized  and  feeling  modes  are 
not.  It  appears  that  the  similarity  must  be  accounted  for  on  the  basis  of  the 
close  connection  of  these  sensory  and  activity  processes  with  the  feeling  corre- 
lations in  their  instinctive  or  phylogenetic  origin  rather  than  as  a  matter  of 
identity.  But,  even  if  feeling  modes  should  be  demonstrated  to  be  only  abstrac- 
tions from  sensory  and  ideational  consciousness,  it  would  not  affect  this  theory 
of  correlation  and  the  resulting  theory  of  the  relativity  of  feeling  as  a  criterion 
or  valuation  of  activity. 


THE   NEURAL   CORRELATE   OF   FEELING  21 

The  feeling  modes  experienced  in  connection  with  the  cor- 
related exercise  of  the  other  exteroceptive  sensory  processes 
can  be  explained  in  terms  of  the  same  general  nervous  corre- 
lation. The  bitter  and  sour  sensory  neural  processes,  the  neural 
processes  of  the  sense  organs  of  the  nauseating  odors,  etc., 
because  of  their  relation  to  survival,  have  been  so  implanted,  i.e., 
correlated,  in  the  nervous  system  phylogenetically  that  when  they 
are  excited  they  tend  to  interrupt  the  existing  visceral  neural  pro- 
cesses or  sets39  and,  if  the  disturbance  is  very  great,  to  bring 
the  conflict  of  processes  into  the  cortex  and  thus  to  arouse  dis- 
agreeable consciousness.  They  tend  frequently  also  to  inhibit  or 
interrupt  the  various  exteroceptive  sensory  neural  processes, 
such  as  those  of  sight  and  hearing.  In  either  case  the  conflict 
of  processes  results  not  only  in  unpleasantness  (where  conscious- 
ness is  involved)  but  also  tends  to  produce  a  new  disposition 
of  the  organism  and  of  its  organs  for  the  purpose  of  escape  from 
the  stimulus.40  In  a  similar  manner  the  sensory  neural  pro- 
cesses connected  with  the  sense  organs  of  sweet  and  those  of 
the  various  ordinarily  pleasing  odors,  tend  to  strengthen  the  more 
fundamental  visceral  neural  processes  and  exteroceptive  com- 
binations with  them,  producing  a  flow  of  saliva  in  the  glands, 
forward  or  receptive  movement,  etc. 

In  the  case  of  sight  and  hearing,  the  nervous  processes 
are  not  so  closely  connected  with  the  visceral  neural  processes, 
but  more  closely  with  the  other  processes  of  the  peripheral  or 
exteroceptive  nervous  system.  Here  we  find  that  sharp  and 

30  The  nerves  of  taste  and  smell  have  much  stronger  visceral  or  intero- 
ceptive  connections  than  those  of  sight  or  hearing  have.  Cf.  Herrick,  Anatom. 
Record,  IV,  68. 

140  Smell  and  taste  are  by  no  means  infallible  guides,  in  their  pleasantness 
and  unpleasantness 'manifestations,  especially  for  many  of  the  odors  and  chemi- 
cal combinations  or  tastes  produced  in  a  social  or  civilized  order  of  technical 
control,  though  they  are  pretty  reliable  guides  in  the  instinctive  or  uncultural 
animal  world.  Consequently  ideational  consciousness  has  to  be  brought  into 
play  to  determine  when  in  cultural  life  we  can  safely  make  exceptions  to  our 
instinctive  reactions  on  the  basis  of  feeling  consciousness  arising  from  smell 
and  taste  neural  correlations.  A  similar  higher  conscious  reference  is  also 
necessary  in  connection  with  sight  and  hearing  and  all  the  other  peripheral 
senses. 


22  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

amorphous  sounds  (noises)  and  sudden  and  unharmonious 
visual  impressions  tend  to  inhibit  or  disturb  the  nervous  sets 
with  which  the  auditory  and  visual  neural  processes  are  con- 
nected, even  going  over  into  positive  pain  reactions,  as  described 
above,  if  the  stimuli  are  strong  enough.  The  results  are  an 
attempt  to  escape  from  the  stimulus,  on  the  objective  side  of 
behavior,  and  the  feeling  mode  of  unpleasantness  on  the  sub- 
jective side  when  consciousness  is  involved.  On  the  other  hand 
,  rhythmical  sounds  and  symmetrical  visual  impressions  tend  to 
result  in  neural  processes  which  supplement  the  neural  sets  with 
which  they  are  connected  and  thus  to  produce  receptive  or 
advancing  movements  and  the  feeling  mode  of  pleasantness 
when  consciousness  is  involved.41 

In  the  case  of  the  contact  receptors,  or  the  cutaneous  sense 
organs,  the  correlation  of  neural  processes  is  much  more  simple 
and  direct.  Increase  of  stimuli  more  readily  leads  over  into 
a  direct  pain  response,  on  the  one  hand,  while  correlation  of 
neural  processes  either  by  way  of  supplementation  or  interrup- 
tion of  other  connected  neural  processes,  in  the  cortex  or  else- 
where, takes  place  more  readily  and  less  variantly.  For  example 
we  may  respond  to  temperature  or  tactual  stimulation  either 
unconsciously,  or  with  the  consciousness  of  both  pleasantness 
and  unpleasantness,  or  even  with  both  unpleasantness  and  pain, 
and  sometimes  with  pain  and  pleasantness,  as  in  a  case  where 
we  enjoy  the  warmth  of  the  fire  and  at  the  same  time -experi- 
ence pain  from  overstimulation  of  some  of  the  temperature 
sense  organs.  Similarly,  scratching  or  caressing  may  be  both 
pleasurable  and  painful,  pleasant  alone,  or  without  conscious 
results  whatever. 

41  Wild  animals — and  even  human  beings — are  easily  disturbed  by  a  sharp 
sound  or  a  distorted  image  in  the  periphery  of  the  retina,  while  both  animals 
and  men  may  be  pacified  and  even  hypnotized  by  the  regular  recurrence  of 
sounds  or  objects  (rhythm  and  regular  space  movements)  provided  the  recur- 
rence is  not  abrupt.  The  device  of  providing  simple  music  to  increase  the  labor 
activity  of  workers  is  known  to  savages  and  was  largely  employed  by  tyrants  and 
others  in  early  times.  The  fact  that  we  see  landscapes,  pictures,  buildings,  etc., 
in  a  series  of  planes  is  well  known  to  landscape  gardeners,  architects,  sculptors, 
painters,  etc.  Cf.  Hirn,  Origins  of  Art;  Hildebrand,  The  Problem  of  Form  in 
Painting  and  Sculpture  (tr.  Meyer  and  Ogden),  New  York,  1907. 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  23 

The  same  general  relationship  of  support  and  interference 
is  also  true  of  the  ideational  neural  processes  or  highest  cortical 
processes.  But  here  the  interference  and  supplementary  con- 
nections appear  to  be  the  result  of  habit  or  training  rather  than 
of  heredity — unless  the  cases  in  which  the  ideational  neural 
processes  arouse  the  sensory  or  visceral  neural  processes 
through  association  and  thus  establish  relations  with  the  basic 
vegetative  neural  set,  with  the  usual  results,  can  be  shown  to 
be  hereditary  connections.42 

Thus  the  neural  processes  from  the  primitive  visceral  pro- 
cesses and  the  most  primitive  visceral  and  peripheral  sensory 
neural  processes  (those  later  recognized  as  connected  with 
sex  and  pain  sensory  consciousness)  up  through  the  various 
forms  of  exteroceptive  sensory  processes — the  contact  receptors 
and  the  distance  receptors  of  the  exteroceptive  system,  and  the 
inte receptively  connected  peripheral  sensory  processes  of  taste 
and  smell,  standing  in  point  of  rank  between  these  two — to 
and  including  the  highest  ideational  neural  or  cortical  processes, 
furnish  a  descending  scale  of  hereditary  or  instinctive  correla- 
tion, i.e.,  supplementation  and  inhibition  or  interference,  with 
the  prevailing  basic  neural  sets  and  processes.  Those  processes 
developed  latterly  in  phylogeny  appear  to  be  less  definitely  and 
irreversibly  associated  by  heredity  in  this  way,  till  in  the  higher 

42  Examples  of  such  correlations  are,  the  thinking  of  food  one  likes  with 
the  imagined  sensory  appearance  of  its  specific  favor  and  "watering"  of  the 
mouth,  imaging  of  a  sharp  knife  inflicting  a  wound  with  a  dimmed  imaginary 
sensation  of  pain  and  stiffening  or  shuddering  or  squirming  movement  of  the 
body,  etc.  Whether  we  inherit  any  such  correlations  or  merely  acquire  them  is 
still  a  question  in  psychology.  We  certainly  have  large  capacity  for  breaking 
up  such  co-ordinations,  as  in  "getting  used"  to  things.  Some  others  that  are 
unquestionably  acquired  are  our  attitudes  toward  books,  people,  pets,  houses  in 
which  we  live,  various  hobbies,  etc.  Professor  Herrick,  in  speaking  of  the 
indefiniteness  of  the  correlations  of  the  higher  neural  processes  in  vertebrates, 
says,  "In  short,  the  educational  period  is  limited  to  the  age  during  which  the 
epigenetic  tissue,  i.e.,  the  correlation  centers  whose  form  is  not  predetermined 
in  heredity,  retains  its  plasticity  under  environmental  influence.  Ultimately  even 
the  cerebral  cortex  matures  and  loses  its  powers  of  reacting  except  in  fixed 
modes.  Its  unspecialized  tissue — originally  a  diffuse  and  equipotential  nervous 
meshwork — becomes  differentiated  along  definite  lines  and  the  fundamental 
pattern  becomes  more  or  less  rigid." — Science,  XXXI,  10. 


24       AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

ideational  neural  processes  it  is  doubtful  if  there  is  any  but 
acquired  definite  correlation  at  all.  Corresponding  to  these 
inherited  and  acquired  neural  attitudes  of  supplementation  and 
conflict  we  have  throughout  the  series  a  correlation  of  feeling 
modes,  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness.  Thus  we  find  that 
pleasantness  is  usually  connected  with  sex,  sweet,  etc.,  sensory 
and  corresponding  ideational  neural  processes,  since  these  pro- 
cesses, because  of  their  phylogenetic  connections,  usually  sup- 
plement or  strengthen  the  dominant  neural  sets.  In  the  same 
way  we  ordinarily  find  unpleasantness  associated  with  pain, 
bitter,  sour,  etc.,  sensory  and  related  ideational  neural  processes, 
since  these  are  generally  inhibitive  of  the  prevailing  neural  sets, 
because  of  their  phylogenetic  connections.  But  this  close 
inherited  neural  adjustment  and  its  correlative  feeling  adjust- 
ment is  not  definite  and  fixed.  Both  inherited  and  acquired 
pathways  which  are  either  inhibitive  of  or  supplementary  to 
the  prevailing  set  may  be  modified  so  that  it  cannot  be  said  of 
any  one  process,  however  fundamental  phylogenetically,  that  it 
always  and  invariably  results  in  either  mode  of  feeling.  In 
the  higher  and  therefore  less  stable  and  less  hereditary  adjust- 
ments the  interchange  between  interference  and  co-operation 
of  processes  is  quite  marked,  so  that  in  this  region  (as  in  a 
large  range  of  visual  and  auditory  impressions)  it  becomes 
quite  impossible  to  foretell  what  feeling  mode  will  follow  the 
sensory  impression,  unless  one  is  familiar  with  the  habit 
acquirements  of  the  person  receiving  it. 

But  with  a  completer  development  of  the  cortex  or  end 
segment  and  as  the  higher  exteroceptive  sensory  neural  pro- 
cesses (such  as  those  of  vision  and  audition)  and  finally  the 
higher  ideational  neural  processes43  are  added  to  the  lower 
exteroceptive  sensory  and  motor,  and  the  visceral,  neural  pro- 
cesses (such  as  the  sensory  processes  of  pain  and  sex  connec- 

43  Professor  Herrick  makes  consciousness  a  part  of  the  general  system  of 
biological  control.  It  is  significant  that  the  major  part  of  imagery  is  visual  and 
auditory,  graduating  down  through  the  other  senses  to  pain,  thus  verifying 
Professor  Herrick's  statement  that  "the  distance  receptors  ....  have  domi- 
nated and  set  the  direction  of  the  evolution  of  the  nervous  system  in  verte- 
brates" (Science,  XXXI,  8). 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  25 

tions  and  those  of  circulation,  respiration,  and  digestion),  the 
center  of  control  of  the  organism  is  greatly  modified.  The 
ideational  neural  processes  exert  a  large  though  perhaps  not 
principal  control  over  man,  while  the  visceral  and  exteroceptive 
neural  processes  of  various  grades  are  most  fundamental  in  mak- 
ing adjustments  among  the  lower  animals,  where  the  nervous 
equipment  is  more  nearly  limited  to  these  processes.  In  this 
way  man  comes  to  have  a  sensory  and  ideational  life  largely 
apart  from  the  lower  sensory  and  vegetative  existence.  A 
great  deal  of  visual  and  auditory  and  cortical  activity  goes  on 
without  any  appreciable  connection  with  the  lower  nervous  dis- 
positions or  sets,  i.e.,  the  vegetative,  the  sex  and  pain  pro- 
cesses. We  engage  in  conversation,  we  discuss  problems  in 
science,  we  hear  music,  view  pictures,  etc.,  with  but  little  increase 
in  vascular  or  respiratory  activity  and  usually  with  no  overt  or 
conscious  evidence  of  pain  or  organic  and  sexual  neural  activity. 
The  explanation  of  this  fact  must  be  that  the  higher  sensory  and 
ideational  neural  processes  are  capable  of  going  on  without  the 
necessity  of  neural  correlation  with  the  lower  exteroceptive  and 
visceral  processes.  Yet  at  such  times  we  may  have  the  most 
vivid  feeling  experience  of  pleasantness  or  unpleasantness. 
These  feelings  are  certainly  aroused  in  connection  with  scien- 
tific work,  with  viewing  a  picture  or  landscape,  or  viewing  a 
back  alley  or  dump,  or  with  hearing  music,  quite  as  much  as 
in  connection  with  exercise,  digestion,  or  sex  and  pain  stimu- 
lation.44 Evidently,  therefore,  we  can  have  interference  and 
supplementation  of  the  higher  sensory  and  ideational  neural 
processes  regardless  more  or  less  of  the  lower  neural  processes. 
However,  even  if  such  correlation  is  never  wholly  independent 
of  the  lower  processes,45  the  connection  is  often  so  slight  that 
we  may  have  pleasantness  or  unpleasantness  practically  inde- 

44  Meyer    thinks    that    feelings    arising    from    higher    sensory    or    ideational 
neural  co-ordinations  are  the  stronger.     Cf.  Psy.  Rev.,  XV,  320-21. 

45  Different  people  appear  to   vary   largely  in  this   respect,  some  being  very 
emotional  and  others  being  in  most  respects  habitually  cool  and  unruffled.     For 
some  people  all  kinds  of  ideational  and  even  higher  sensory  activity  have  marked 
overt    results,    in   increased    respiration,    vascular    extension    (as    blushing),    etc., 
while  other  people  experience  none  of  these.     Many  people  cannot,  at  least  with- 


26  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

pendent  of  or  in  opposition  to  them.  Frequently  we  experi- 
ence pleasantness  thus  aroused  when  we  also  have  vascular  and 
respiratory  depression,  or  even  pains  of  indigestion,  surface 
pains,  etc.  In  the  same  way  unpleasantness  arising  from  correla- 
tion of  cortical  and  higher  sensory  neural  processes  may  be 
experienced  along  with  strong  normal  visceral  activity.  This 
antithesis  is  even  more  marked  in  the  field  of  pathology. 

Thus  it  appears  that,  whether  we  have  to  do  with  feeling  in 
its  more  primitive  aspect  of  direct  or  indirect  correlation  of 
visceral  processes  or  of  visceral  with  exteroceptive  processes,  or 
with  feeling  in  its  later  evolutionary  and  functional  aspect  of 
correlations  of  the  higher  sensory  and  ideational  neural  processes 
more  or  less  independent  of  the  visceral  and  lower  exteroceptive 
neural  processes,  such  correlation  is  a  purely  internal  matter. 
Feeling  is  a  purely  personal  or  individualistic  phenomenon.46 

Feeling  is  a  simple  or  relatively  unreflective  form  of  con- 
sciousness, serving  to  make  elementary  adjustments  of  avoid- 
ance and  acceptance  of  a  more  complex  character  than  those 
made  to  direct  stimulation  and  of  a  less  complex  character  than 
those  made  on  the  basis  of  reflective  or  ideational  consciousness. 
Just  as  feeling  is  not  connected  with  simple  sensation,  so  also 
it  is  at  a  minimum  in  the  most  complex  thinking.  It  is  only 
where  we  can  go  no  further  in  thought,  or  when  the  think- 
ing is  really  ended  and  the  matter  is  "clear  in  our  minds," 
when  the  problem  is  solved,  that  we  have  unpleasantness  and 
pleasantness  respectively  as  correlates  of  neural  processes 
involved  in  higher  thinking  activity.47  Really  complex,  i.e.,  the 

out  practice,  inhale  putrid  odors  or  even  look  upon  blood  or  a  painful  per- 
formance without  becoming  sick  and  possibly  vomiting.  Sharp  words  some- 
times, as  does  fatigue,  bring  sensations  of  pain  to  the  surface  of  the  body. 
Ellis  (Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex)  gives  an  instance  of  a  woman  habitually 
having  primary  sexual  experience  upon  hearing  music.  Erotic  music  and  pic- 
tures and  histrionic  representations  generally  have  some  such  effect,  usually  in 
a  milder  degree,  as  is  well  known.  But  the  ordinary  forms  of  conversation  and 
the  higher  forms  of  reasoning  are  usually  without  such  visceral,  or  pain  and 
sex  concomitants  as  would  indicate  any  particular  neural  connection. 
46Judd,  Psy.,  193,  202. 

47  Cf.  James  Ward,  op.  cit.;  and  Dewey,  "Theory  of  Emotion,"  Psy.  Rev., 
II,  31. 


THE  NEURAL  CORRELATE  OF  FEELING  2J 

more  sophisticated  social,  adjustments  are  not  made  on  the 
basis  of  feeling  response,  just  as  they  are  not  made  on  the 
basis  of  mere  sensory  reaction. 

Feeling  is  also  entirely  relative  as  regards  its  object.48  In 
connection  with  the  lower  and  more  instinctive  processes,  corre- 
lations are  more  or  less  definite  and  fixed,  though  apparently 
never  completely  and  irreversibly  so.  Pain  is  usually  unpleas- 
ant; sweet  is  usually  pleasant.  But  the  higher  and  more 
habitual  or  relatively  uncontrolled  processes  enter  into  less 
and  less  definite  correlations  the  higher  we  go  in  the  extero- 
ceptive  scale,  till  we  reach  the  stage  of  highly  indefinite 
cortical  correlations.  These  correlations  can  be  made  relatively 
definite  however  by  fixing  habits.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
any  habitual  or  instinctive  correlation  can  be  broken  up  or 
reformed,  that  is,  any  act  may  be  made  pleasant  or  unpleasant. 
The  scourge,  the  sedentary  self-torture  amid  vermin  and  filth 
of  the  Hindu  fanatics,  or  the  similar  isolation  of  Stylites  on 
the  column,  laceration  of  one's  body,  etc.,  may  become  sources 
of  pleasure;  while  the  taking  of  savory  food,  the  sound  of 
sweetest  music,  the  odor  of  roses,  or  the  sexual  act  may  become 
the  agents  of  the  most  unbearable  unpleasantness.  For  this 
reason  feeling  modes  cannot  be  effective  guides  to  social 
adjustment  and  control.  In  a  purely  instinctive  or  static, 
i.e.,  habit-controlled,  world  where,  hypothetically,  everything 
remains  forever  the  same,  feeling  might  operate  as  a  success- 
ful criterion  for  race  adjustment.  It  might,  barring  cataclysm 
and  the  unexpected,  work  toward  the  escape  from  danger  and 
the  reproduction  and  feeding  of  the  greatest  number  of  indi- 
viduals not  competing  or  co-operating  with  each  other,  except 
on  an  animal  plane — though  this  may  be  said  to  be  doubtful.49 
But  in  a  world  where  training  must  modify  instinct,  where 
the  cultural  and  artificial  rather  than  the  habitual  and  "natural" 
set  the  standard,  in  a  social  and  moral  world  in  the  best  sense, 

48  Cf.  Titchener,  op.  cit.,  108. 

48  Cf.  S.  J.  Holmes,  "Pleasure,  Pain,  and  Intelligence,"  Jour,  of  Compar. 
Neurology  and  Psychol.,  XX,  148-49. 


28  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

feeling  cannot  serve  as   a  guide   for  the  preservation   of   the 
individual  and  much  less  of  society. 

This  principle  of  the  relativity  of  feeling  and  of  its  unre- 
liableness  as  a  guide  or  measure  of  values  is  applicable  through- 
out the  present  discussion.  In  a  less  degree,  the  same  relativity 
can  be  predicated  of  all  conscious  processes.  That  no  idea, 
image,  or  sensory  process  is  always  absolutely  valid  or  fixed  in 
content  has  been  pretty  well  known  from  the  time  of  Locke.50 
That  is  to  say,  no  subjectivistic  criterion  is  wholly  depend- 
able as  a  measure  of  values,  and  any  such  criterion  is  the  more 
dependable  the  more  it  is  checked  up  by  objective  reference,  i.e., 
by  sensory  experiences  and  objective  controls  of  as  many  types 
as  possible.  Feeling  as  the  conscious  part  of  mere  correlation, 
i.e.,  as  supplementation  and  interference  of  neural  processes, 
is  the  least  able  to  be  so  checked  up,  and  is  consequently  the 
least  reliable  of  all  subjective  criteria  or  evaluations  of  action 
in  an  objective  and  social  world.  Thus  in  the  light  of  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  total  biological  functioning,  the  statements 
of  both  old  and  modern  psychologists  and  philosophers  to  the 
effect  that  pleasure  is  a  sign  of  the  health  of  the  organism,  of  its 
successful  functioning,  of  the  presence  of  energy,  etc.,51  appeal- 
absolutely  inadequate.  Feeling  indicates  only  certain  internal 
nervous  adjustments  on  the  basis  of  instinctive  or  habitual 
disposition  and  not  gross  and  inclusive  bodily  or  ofganic  adjust- 
ments. Such  views  indicate  a  closer  acquaintance  with  the 
hypothetical  and  simplified  conditions  of  instinctive  life  or  of 
life  regulated  by  the  philosopher's  logic  than  with  the  more 
complex  determinants  of  human  social  life.  These  are  facts 
which  the  sociology  of  the  future,  if  it  is  to  be  functional, 
must  apply. 

60  Cf.  Locke,  op.  cit.,  Bk.  II,  chaps,  xxix-xxxii. 

51  Cf.  Ribot,   Bain,  Judd,  Titchener,   Marshall,  etc.,  above. 


III.     THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  ACT 

NATURE  OF  THE  ACT. THEORIES  OF  THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  ACT.— 

THE  ACTUAL  CAUSE  OF  THE  ACT. FEELING  AS  CAUSE. THE 

CAUSE    OF    THE    ACT     AS     RELATED    TO     THE    END    OF    THE 
ACTIVITY 

The  problem  of  this  chapter  is  to  determine  the  relation  of 
feeling  to  the  act.  Preliminary  to  discussing  this  matter  in 
detail  it  seems  necessary,  (i)  briefly  to  analyze  the  act  itself 
and  (2)  to  review  the  conclusions  of  a  number  of  representa- 
tive writers  on  the  relation  of  feeling  to  the  act. 

Up  to  the  time  when  Bain  formulated  the  theory  of  spon- 
taneity in  activity,1  not  much  distinction  had  been  made  in  philo- 
sophical and  psychological  discussion  between  conscious  and 
unconscious  activity.  It  was  rather  the  custom  of  writers  up 
to  that  time  to  ignore  all  activity  except  that  of  which  the  actor 
was  supposed  to  be  conscious.  Their  investigations  of  activity 
were  logical  rather  than  biological  and  functional.2  Though 
Bain  was  largely  influenced  in  his  contribution  by  the  develop- 
ment of  biological  knowledge,  his  successors  in  mental  science, 
with  greater  opportunity  for  such  investigation,  have  not  made 
the  advance  in  this  line  of  thinking  that  might  have  been 
expected  of  them.  The  distinction  between  unconscious  and 
conscious  activity  is  still  very  inadequately  if  at  all  applied  to 
ethical  and  social  science,  and  has  not  entered  effectively  even 
into  psychology,  which  still  continues  to  be  largely  logical  and 

1  Emotions  and   Will  (3d   ed.),   201.     For  a  recent  statement  of  the   theory 
see  Jennings,  Behavior  of  the  Lower  Organisms,  284  ff. 

2  This    attitude    was    probably    the    result    of    the    old    theocratic    philosophy 
which    looked   upon   man   as   provided   either   with    an    infallible   and   omniscient 
conscience  or  with  an  equally  infallible  objective  revelation  which  he  was  sup- 
posed to  be  able  in  some  unexplained  way  to  interpret   omnisciently.     In  other 
words,  the  philosophy  which  posited  an  omniscient  and  all-conscious  deity  also 
posited  an  omniscient  and  all-conscious  human  being  as  the  deity's  correlate  or 
alter. 

29 


30  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

structural.3  This  limitation  of  the  treatment  of  the  act  was  a 
great  stumbling-block  to  the  utilitarians  and  to  their  prede- 
cessors and  successors. 

To  avoid  the  limitations  imposed  by  such  a  conception  of 
activity  we  may  be  justified,  perhaps,  in  isolating  four  dif- 
ferent types  of  activity  with  reference  to  the  degree  of  con- 
sciousness involved  in  the  conduct.  The  first  is  activity  from 
mass  impact.  The  human  organism,  of  course,  never  reacts 
exactly  like  an  inanimate  object,  because  its  internal  capacity 
for  ready  adjustment,  for  breaking  shock  and  controlling  the 
direction  of  motion,  is  essentially  different.  But  there  are  never- 
theless a  very  large  number  of  organic  movements  which  are 
beyond  the  immediate  powers  of  adjustment  by  the  individuals 
— discounting,  of  course,  the  nearly  constant  influence  of 
gravity.  This  is,  socially  considered,  the  least  important  type 
of  activity  and  may  for  the  present  be  ignored.  The  second 
is  reflexive  and  instinctive  and  habitual  activity  proceeding  from 
stimuli  over  which  the  organism  is  for  the  most  part  in  con- 
trol, but  in  which  consciousness  does  not  enter  till  after  the 
act,  if  at  all,  and  consequently  cannot  be  a  guide  to  that  act. 
The  third  is  a  subdivision  of  the  second,  in  which  activity  is 
instinctively  and  reflexively  initiated,  but  in  which  conscious- 
ness enters  in  the  midst  of  the  act  as  a  "corrective"  to  secure 
more  efficient  control.  The  fourth  is  a  type  in  which  the  activity 
is  more  or  less  consciously  planned  and  in  which  the  organism 
consciously  seeks  stimulus  to  the  activity.  It  is  impossible,  how- 
ever, completely  to  foresee  all  the  conditions  of  an  act,  i.e., 
to  anticipate  all  the  stimuli  and  to  estimate  accurately  the 
resistance  of  the  organism  to  the  stimuli.  Consequently  no 
previsioned  act  is  ever  wholly  consciously  controlled.4  The 
second  and  third  types  of  activity  are  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant individually  and  socially,  while  the  fourth  is  of  second- 
ary importance  in  the  matter  of  maintaining  social  adjustment 
and  control,  though  it  must  always  be  appealed  to  in  mak- 

8  For  further  discussion  of  this  point  see  McDougall,  Physiological  Psy.,  i,  2. 

*  Woodworth   brings    this    fact    out    clearly   in    "The    Cause    of   a    Voluntary 

Movement,"  Studies  in  Philosophy  and  Psychology  (Carman  Memorial  Volume), 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   ACT  31 

ing  radical  changes  or  in  projecting  social  ideals.  But  the 
larger  part  of  social  activity  and  social  conformity  is  not  on 
this  plane.  The  fourth  is  really  the  conscious  part  of  the  third, 
more  or  less  abstracted  and  adequately  controlled.  It  is  this 
particular  fourth  type  of  activity  with  which  the  utilitarians 
and  other  earlier  philosophers  dealt,  and  it  is  to  this  type  also 
that  modern  ethicists  and  many  sociologists  insist  upon  confin- 
ing themselves.5  Any  complete  statement  of  the  social  process, 
i.e.,  of  social  adjustments,  and  hence  of  the  conditions  of 
social  activity,  must  rest  upon  all  four  types.  The  very  assump- 
tion that  feeling  (as  a  form  of  consciousness)  alone  is  the 
cause  of  conduct  and  activity  is  a  negation  of  all  except  the 
last. 

From  Hobbes  to  Meakin,6  the  latest  apologist  for  the 
hedonic  criterion  in  ethics  and  in  social  control,  the  line  of 
emphasis  has  not  essentially  changed  among  the  advocates  of 
feeling  as  the  cause  of  activity.7  Hobbes  held,  in  his  own  termi- 
nology, that  both  ideas  of  activities  accompanied  by  pleasantness 
and  unpleasantness  and  the  feelings  themselves  are  causes  of 
activity.8  All  the  other  hedonistic  psychologists  and  philosophers 
explicitly  or  indirectly  emphasize  the  same  relationship  between 
feeling  and  action.9  Only  a  few  mention  other  than  conscious 

6  Cf.   Dewey  and  Tufts,   op.   tit.;  Judd,  Psy.   Rev.    (March,    1910),   78,   80; 
Ward,   Psychic  Factors   of   Civilisation,    129-30;    Small,    General  Sociology,    184, 
as  examples. 

9  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct   (New   York,   Putnam,    1910). 

7  In   considering   the   various   views   of   the   cause   of   the   act   based   upon    a 
hedonistic    criterion,    it    is    necessary    to    keep    in    mind    the    great    diversity    of 
meanings  which  feeling  has  had  in  the  history  of  psychology,  and  also  the  fact 
that  it  is  often  very  difficult  to  determine  whether  the  conscious  process  which 
any  particular  author  has  in  mind  is  sensory,  ideational,  or  feeling  proper. 

8  Hobbes  says  that  pleasures  and  pains  of  sense  move  us  directly  to  action, 
since  they  are  "motions"  or  "endeavours"  which  proceed  from   external   objects 
through    the    sense    organs    to    the    heart    and    there    appear    as    "appetite"    and 
"aversion"    (Leviathan,   loc.   cit.,   42).      Other  motions   "arise   from   the   expecta- 
tion,  that   proceeds   from   the   foresight   of  the  end,   or   consequences   of   things ; 
whether  these  things  in  the  sense  please  or  displease."     These  are  pleasures  and 
pains  of  the  mind  and  likewise  impel  to  action   (ibid.,  43). 

8  The   citations   in  this   and  the   two   following  notes   are   necessarily  incom- 
plete.    They  embrace,  however,  as  large  a  number  of  fields  of  investigation  and 


32  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

causes  of  activity.  All  however  agree  that  no  conscious  activity 
can  be  caused  otherwise  than  by  feeling,  though  all  at  different 
times  plainly  confuse  feeling  with  sensory  and  ideational  pro- 
cesses proper.  All  alike  appear  to  be  ignorant  of  this  distinction, 
though  contemporaries  of  some  of  the  later  writers  have  pointed 
it  out  more  or  less  clearly. 

as  large  a  scope  of  territory  as  are  possible  within  the  limits  of  space  available, 
keeping  in  mind,  of  course,  the  fact  that  the  main  discussion  of  this  study 
centers  around  the  English  and  American  ethical  and  social  philosophy.  For 
additional  citations  in  convenient  form,  see  Wright,  op.  cit. 

Helvetius  goes  a  step  farther  than  Hobbes  and  assumes,  besides  a  world 
of  physical  forces,  one  of  mental  forces  in  which  pleasure  and  pain  are  masters 
of  activity  and  thought:  "[God  says  to  man]  Je  te  mets  sous  la  garde  du  plaisir 
et  de  la  douleur:  1'un  et  1'autre  veilleront  a  tes  pensees,  a  tes  actions;  engende- 
ront  tes  passions ;  exciteront  tes  aversions,  tes  amites,  tes  tendresses,  tes  fureurs ; 
allumeront  tes  desirs,  tes  craintes,  tes  esperances ;  te  devoileront  des  vierites ;  te 
plongeront  dans  des  erreurs ;  et,  apres  t'avoir  fait  enfanter  mille  systemes 
absurdes  et  differents  de  morale  et  de  legislation,  te  decouvriront  un  jour  les 
principes  simples,  au  developpement  desquels  est  attache  1'ordre  et  le  bonheur 
du  monde  moral"  (De  I 'esprit,  322).  Locke:  "That  which  immediately  deter- 
mines the  will  ....  to  every  voluntary  action,  is  the  uneasiness  of  desire 
fixed  upon  some  negative  (absent)  good,"  as  freedom  from  pain  and  "enjoyment 
of  pleasure."  And  that  which  moves  desire  is  "Happiness,  and  that  alone"  (op. 
cit.,  Bk.  II,  chap,  xxi,  sees.  33  and  41).  Bentham :  "Nature  has  placed  mankind 
under  the  governance  of  two  sovereign  masters,  pain  and  pleasure.  It  is  for  them 
alone  to  point  out  what  we  ought  to  do,  as  well  as  to  determine  what  we  shall 
do"  (op.  cit.,  chap,  i,  sec.  i).  Also,  "Among  all  the  several  psychological 
entities  ....  the  main  pillars  or  foundations  of  all  the  rest — the  matter  of 
which  all  the  rest  are  composed —  ....  will  be  ....  seen  to  be,  Pleasures 
and  Pains"  These  are  the  "springs  of  action"  ("The  Springs  of  Action," 
Works  [ed.  Bowring],  I,  211).  Bain:  "Some  pleasure  or  pain,  near  or  remote, 
is  essential  to  every  volitional  effort,  or  every  change  from  quiescence  to  move- 
ment, or  from  one  movement  to  another"  (Emotions  and  Will  [3d  ed.],  35°)- 
"Without  some  antecedent  of  pleasurable  or  painful  feeling — actual  or  ideal, 
primary  or  derivative — the  will  cannot  be  stimulated"  (ibid.,  354)'  He  defines 
volition  as  "the  operation  of  pleasures  and  pains  for  stimulating  activities  for 
ends"  (ibid.,  315-16).  Movements  are  at  first  spontaneous  and  random 
(Senses  and  Intellect,  300).  Suitable  activities  are  selected  and  fixed  by  pleasure, 
which  has  become  fortuitously  connected  with  them  (Emotions  and  Will,  3J5)- 
Baldwin  takes  essentially  the  same  view  (Handbook  of  Psychology;  Emotions 
and  Will,  301-3).  He  also  has  an  elaborate  classification  of  motives  (ibid.,  332). 
Leslie  Stephen:  "Pain  and  pleasure  are  ....  the  determining  causes  of  action 

....  the  sole  and  ultimate  causes Will  is  always  determined  by  the  actual 

painfulness  or  pleasantness  of  the  choice  at  the  moment  of  choosing"  (Science 
of  Ethics,  50).  The  feeling  is  reflected  back  from  the  previsioned  act,  as  it 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   ACT  33 

There  are  two  other  types  of  writers — only  partially  or  not 
at  all  hedonistic,  though  for  the  most  part  individualistic,  in 
their  viewpoint — who  deal  with  the  cause  of  the  act.  Those  of 
one  class  regard  feeling  as  one,  and  only  one,  of  the  factors  in 
determining  conscious  choice.10 

were,  and  becomes  the  actual  motive  force  (ibid.,  54).  He  regards  feeling  as  a 
true  psychical  force  (ibid.,  57).  Lester  F.  Ward  also  regards  the  feelings, 
especially  after  memory  has  made  them  into  desires  (Psychic  Factors  of  Civi- 
lization, 52),  as  psychic  forces  (Pure  Sociology,  132),  and  he  even  terms  the 
science  of  the  operation  of  these  desires  "mental  physics"  or  psychics  (Psychic 
Factors  of  Civilization,  129).  This  is  a  terminology  which  reminds  one  some- 
what of  Hobbes  (op.  cit.,  42)  and  of  Comte  in  a  more  general  sense  (Positive 
Philosophy  [Martineau's  transl.],  Bk.  VI).  Painful  and  pleasurable  sensations, 
he  says  further,  are  respectively  the  causes  of  action  away  from  and  toward 
objects  (Psychic  Factors  of  Civilisation,  126).  He  also  declares  that  desire, 
which  he  characterizes  as  "in  its  essential  nature  ....  a  form  of  pain"  (ibid., 
54),  "is  the  all-pervading,  world-animating  principle,  the  universal  nisus  and 
pulse  of  nature,  the  mainspring  of  all  action,  and  the  life-power  of  the  world" 
(ibid.,  55).  Spencer:  "The  feelings  have  in  common  the  character  that  they 
cause  bodily  action  which  is  violent  in  proportion  as  they  are  intense"  (Prin- 
ciples of  Psy.,  II,  541).  "The  emotions  are  the  masters,  the  intellect  is  the  serv- 
ant. The  guidance  of  our  acts  through  perception  and  reason  has  for  its  end 
the  satisfaction  of  feelings"  ("Feeling  vs.  Intellect,"  Facts  and  Comments,  38). 
L.  F.  Ward,  Bain,  and  others  concur  in  this  view.  J.  R.  Angell :  "Some  such 
symbols  [as  agreeableness  and  disagreeableness]  there  must  be,  if  consciousness 
is  to  steer  successfully  among  new  surroundings  and  in  strange  environments" 
(Psy.,  273).  S.  N.  Patton:  "There  is  always  an  endeavor  to  increase  pleasure 
and  to  avoid  pain  if  the  animal  is  conscious  of  these  emotions"  (Theory  of 
Social  Forces,  chap,  i,  sec.  i).  Jevons  bases  his  theory  entirely  upon  a  calculation 
of  pleasure  and  pain  and  declares  the  object  of  political  economy  to  be  to  deter- 
mine the  maximum  amount  of  happiness  which  can  be  realized  in  purchasing 
the  greatest  possible  amount  of  pleasure  with  the  least  possible  amount  of  pain 
(Theory  of  Political  Economy  [3d  ed.],  37).  Frederick  Meakin :  "For  the  ground 
of  choice  we  are  referred,  ultimately,  to  the  pleasurable  or  painful  functional 
act"  (op.  cit.,  37). 

10  Titchener  regards  attention  as  the  only  cause  of  voluntary  action  in 
primitive  consciousness,  and  in  his  opinion  attention  was  limited  to  the  intrinsi- 
cally pleasant  and  unpleasant  (Outlines  of  Psy.,  250).  With  the  introduction  of 
action  upon  representation,  or  with  the  appearance  of  memory,  other  elements 
than  affection  came  to  operate  in  psychical  causation  (ibid.,  254  ff.).  Thorndike 

declares  that  "any  mental  state  may  serve  as  a  motive One  of  the  most 

artificial  doctrines  about  human  nature  which  has  ever  acquired  prominence  is 
the  doctrine  that  pleasure  and  pain,  felt  or  imagined,  are  the  only  motives  to 
action,  that  a  human  being  is  constantly  making  a  conscious  or  unconscious 
calculation  of  the  amount  of  each  which  the  contemplated  act  will  produce,  and 


34  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

Those  of  the  other  type  hold  that  feeling  can  never  be  such 
a  cause.11  The  main  value  of  a  study  of  these  views  consists  in 
the  fact  that,  (i)  it  indicates  the  confusion  in  which  all  mental, 
ethical,  and  social  science  has  been  and  yet  is,  in  regard  to  a 
criterion  for  the  cause  of  the  act;  (2)  it  points  out  through 

that  his  entire  behavior  is  the  result  of  such  a  life-long  complicated  series  in 
sums  in  addition  and  subtraction.  Pleasure  and  pain  do  play  a  leading  role  in 
determining  action,  but  the  cast  of  characters  includes  also  percepts,  ideas  and 
emotions  of  all  sorts"  (Elements  of  Psy.,  284).  Lotze :  "The  pleasure  of  sense 
is  not  only  the  goal  toward  which  all  the  activity  of  living  creatures  originally 
moves,  but  we  find  that  in  civilized  life  also  it  is  the  hidden  spring  of  the  most 
various  actions"  (op.  cit.,  I,  696-97).  He  adds,  however,  that  conscience  is  the 
only  absolute  guide  (ibid.,  I,  696).  Sidgwick  recognizes  "pleasure"  and  "pain" 
as  "feelings"  which  stimulate  to  actions  producing  or  sustaining  the  former  and 
removing  or  averting  the  latter  (Methods  of  Ethics,  42,  43).  However,  "A 
man's  conscious  [  !]  desire  is,"  he  thinks,  "more  often  than  not  chiefly  extra- 
regarding"  (ibid.,  51),  while  impulses  occur  quite  regardless  of  pleasant  or 
unpleasant  results  (ibid.,  53).  Thus  Sidgwick  holds  to  a  teleological  statement 
of  unconscious  as  well  as  conscious  activities.  Martineau  holds  that  if  one 
exercises  prudential  preference  he  may  act  with  regard  to  pleasurable  or  painful 
effects,  but  that  the  springs  of  action  within  us  [conscience]  are  the  proper 
moral  guides,  and  they  do  not  take  cognizance  of  pleasure  and  pain  (op.  cit., 
II,  70). 

11  Between  Martineau's  view  (mentioned  in  the  preceding  note),  aside  from 
his  criterion  of  conscience,  and  the  views  of  Sorley,  James,  Dewey,  Butler,  and 
others  there  is  little  difference,  aside  from  terminology  and  a  more  complete 
analysis  of  the  act.  All  these  latter  writers  hold  that  the  idea  must  be  the  immedi- 
ate or  actual  cause  of  the  act.  Sorley :  "We  must  aim  not  at  pleasure  per  se  but 
at  objects  which  we  have  reason  to  believe  will  be  accompanied  by  pleasurable 
feeling"  {Ethics  of  Naturalism,  188).  James:  "A  willed  movement  is  a  move- 
ment preceded  by  an  idea  of  itself"  (op.  cit.,  II,  580).  Ideas  of  pleasure  and 
pain  are  among  these  "motor  spurs"  {ibid.,  II,  559).  James's  use  of  language  is 
sometimes  contradictory,  and  one  could  in  places  make  out  that  he  argues  that 
"pleasure  and  pain"  are  direct  causes.  This  doubtless  results  from  his  con- 
stantly confusing  feeling  with  sensation.  Hoffding:  "The  impulse  is  essentially 
determined  by  an  idea,  is  a  striving  after  the  content  of  this  idea,"  which,  however, 
may  refer  to  pleasure-giving  experience  (op.  cit.,  323).  Butler  long  ago  main- 
tained that  "all  particular  appetites  and  passions  are  towards  external  things 
themselves,  distinct  from  the  pleasure  arising  from  them,"  and  that  "there 
could  not  be  this  pleasure,  were  it  not  for  that  prior  suitableness  between  the 
object  and  the  passion"  (Sermon  XI).  Green  takes  essentially  the  same' view 
{op.  cit.,  168)  as  does  Dewey  (Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  270),  though  the  latter 
adds  that  "the  anticipation  of  pleasure  in  its  fulfilment  may  normally  intensify 
the  putting  forth  of  energy,  may  give  an  extra  reinforcement  to  flagging  effort" 
(ibid.,  271).  Marshall  holds  that  "pleasure-pain"  may  serve  to  fix  the  useful 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   ACT  35 

illustrations  that  until  recently  at  least,  if  not  still,  feeling  modes 
have  been  regarded  by  most  writers  of  importance  as  the  only 
or  the  chief  causes  of  the  consciously  chosen  act;  (3)  that  those, 
like  Martineau  and  Lotze,  who  thought  of  the  act  as  properly 
caused  in  some  other  way,  were  prone  to  substitute  some  other 
more  or  less  individualistic  criterion,  such  as  conscience,  as  the 
cause,  as  will  appear  more  clearly  in  chap,  iv  when  the  ends 
of  action  are  discussed.  (4)  It  is  apparent  also  that  some  of  the 
older  writers,  like  Hobbes,  Helvetius,  and  Bentham,  did  not 
take  into  consideration  any  causes  other  than  conscious  ones ; 
nor  has  this  confusion  wholly  disappeared  at  the  present  time. 
(5)  We  have  also  an  indication,  though  incomplete,  of  how  the 
prevailing  social  theory  until  the  most  recent  times  has  followed 
the  lead  of  Bentham,  Locke,  and  Hobbes  in  accepting  a  hedo- 
nistic psychological  basis.  An  expansion  of  this  statement  will 
also  occur  in  the  following  chapters.12 

adjustments  and  to  eradicate  the  harmful  ones  (op.  cit.,  262),  though  it  is  by  no 
means  an  absolute  criterion  (ibid.,  352).  McDougall :  "Pleasure  and  pain  are 
not  in  themselves  springs  of  action,  but  at  the  most  of  undirected  movements ; 
they  serve  rather  to  modify  the  instinctive  processes,  pleasure  tending  to  sus- 
tain and  prolong  any  mode  of  action,  pain  to  cut  it  short ;  under  their  prompt- 
ing guidance  are  effected  those  modifications  and  adaptations  of  the  instinctive 
bodily  movements"  (Introduction  to  Social  Psychology,  43).  Judd:  "It  is  too 
abbreviated  a  form  of  statement  to  say  in  this  case  that  the  pleasure  of  success 
leads  the  mind  to  select  the  appropriate  activity;  the  fact  is  rather  that  the 
pleasure  comes  because  the  selection  has  been  successfully  made  in  a  natural 
way"  (Psy.,  225).  Fite :  "The  ethical  consequence  of  the  functional  view  is  to 
render  it  inconceivable  that  we  should  choose  pleasure  as  an  end,  and  hence, 
impossible  to  set  up  pleasure  as  the  end  to  be  sought.  According  to  the  functional 
view,  the  motive  power  of  action  is  instinct,  and  it  is  the  object  implied  in  the 
instinct  which  constitutes  the  end.  In  this  system  there  is  no  room  for  the  motive 
of  pleasure.  Pleasure  is  simply  an  abstracted  phase  of  the  process  of  satisfac- 
tion— an  indication  that  the  object  is  being  attained  in  the  presence  of  a  diffi- 
culty. In  other  words,  pleasure  is  not  an  active  force  or  function,  but  a  mere 
phenomenon.  The  desire  for  pleasure,  if  conceivable  at  all,  would  be  irrecon- 
cilable with  the  desire  for  the  object;  for  since  pleasure  exists  only  while  suc- 
cess is  deferred,  pleasure  as  such  could  be  prolonged  only  by  sacrificing  the 
object  originally  sought"  ("The  Place  of  Pleasure  and  Pain  in  the  Functional 
Psychology,"  Psy.  Rev.,  X,  643-44). 

12  Also  some  of  the  more  recent  sociologists,  who  have  largely  or  wholly 
abandoned  the  hedonistic  criterion,  still  hold  to  subjectivistic  and  individualistic 
classifications  of  the  springs  of  action,  even  though  these  classifications  are  for 


36  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

What  then  is  the  actual  part  which  feeling  modes  play  in  the 
causation  of  the  act?  To  answer  this  question  properly  it  will 
be  necessary  first  to  determine  what  part  consciousness  of  any 
sort  plays  in  such  causation.  Woodworth  denies  that  imagery 
of  any  kind  is  necessary  to  setting  off  even  a  voluntary  act,  and 
contends  that  "the  complete  determinant  of  a  voluntary  motor 
act  ....  is  nothing  less  than  the  total  set  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem at  the  moment."13 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  enter  into  a  discussion  as  to 
whether  consciousness  can  be  non-imaginal,14  but  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  total  cause  of  any  act  is  more  than  the  con- 
scious part  of  it.  When  an  idea  or  image  precedes  the  act,  i.e., 
when  the  neural  pathway  or  the  act  runs  through  the  cortex  (as 
it  must  when  there  is  considerable  conflict  and  impediment  to 

the  most  part  mere  ornamenta  which  their  authors  do  not  seek  or  are  unable 
to  apply.  (Cf.  chap,  iv,  below,  and  A.  F.  Bentley,  The  Process  of  Government, 
chap,  vii.) 

13  "[No]  form  of  sensorial  image  of  the  movement  or  of  its  outcome  need  be 
present  in  consciousness  in  the  moment  just  preceding  the  innervation.     Imagery, 
kinaesthetic,  tactile,  visual,  auditory,  may  or  may  not  be  present  at  the  launching 
of  a  voluntary  movement;  when  present,  it  seems,  in  many  persons,  at  least,  to 
be  incidental  rather  than  essential  to  the  process." — Woodworth,  op.  cit.,  356. 

"Where  imagery  is  lacking,  peripheral  sensations  are  sometimes  present  in 
the  field  of  attention,  but  after  these  cases  are  abstracted,  there  still  remain  a 
goodly  share  of  the  whole  number  [about  one-fifth]  ....  in  whom  no  sensorial 
content  could  be  detected." — Ibid.,  376. 

"The  complete  determinant  of  a  voluntary  motor  act — that  which  specifies 
exactly  what  act  it  shall  be — is  nothing  less  than  the  total  set  of  the  nervous 
system  at  the  moment.  The  set  is  determined  partly  by  factors  of  long  standing, 
instincts  and  habits,  partly  by  the  sensations  of  the  moment,  partly  by  recent 
perceptions  of  the  situation  and  by  other  thoughts  lately  present  in  consciousness ; 
at  the  moment,  however,  these  factors,  though  they  contribute  essentially  to  the 
set  of  the  system,  are  for  the  most  part  present  in  consciousness  only  as  a 
background  or  "fringe,"  if  at  all,  while  the  attention  is  occupied  by  the  thought 
of  some  particular  change  to  be  effected  in  the  situation.  The  thought  may  be 
clothed  in  sensorial  images — rags  and  tatters,  or  gorgeous  raiment — but  these 
are  after  all  only  clothes,  and  a  naked  thought  [  !]  can  perfectly  well  perform 
its  function  of  starting  the  motor  machinery  in  action  and  determining  the  point 
and  object  of  its  application." — Ibid.,  391-92. 

14  For  such  a  discussion  see  the  above-mentioned  monograph  by  Woodworth ; 
also   Titchener,    The   Experimental  Psychology    of   the    Thought-Processes    (New 
York,   1910). 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   ACT  37 

its  overt  expression),  the  act  is  termed  voluntary.  Because  we 
are  not  able  to  determine  the  total  set  of  the  nervous  system, 
we  seize  upon  its  most  obvious  and  immediate  sign,  the  percept 
or  image,  and  call  it  the  cause,  though  it  is  really  only  the  sign 
of  the  whole  act  of  which  it  is  but  a  part.  If  the  process  of 
ideation  be  a  long  one,  i.e.,  if  the  process  by  which  an  act  finally 
gets  overt  expression  is  modified  by  a  great  many  inhibitions 
occupying  some  appreciable  extent  of  time,  we  term  the  sub- 
jective process  thinking,  and  we  speak  of  the  thought  as  the 
cause  of  our  activity,  while  it  is  only  the  sign  or  index  of  the 
whole  act  of  which  it  is  a  part. 

In  the  same  way  it  has  been  customary  to  speak  of  feeling  as 
the  cause  of  activity,  because  we  knew  little  or  nothing  of  its 
neural  correlates  and  because  it  is  a  very  immediate  experience. 
Feeling,  however,  is  also  but  a  sign  of  the  whole  act,  and  is  even 
farther  removed  from  the  general  causal  process  in  its  com- 
pleteness than  is  the  idea.  As  was  above  pointed  out,  pleasant- 
ness accompanies  neural  processes  which  supplement  each  other 
or  which  supplement  the  more  stable,  though  lower,  visceral  and 
vegetative  neural  processes.  Unpleasantness  accompanies  inter- 
ference of  processes,  either  of  the  higher  sensory  ones  with 
each  other  or  of  these  with  the  lower  basic  sets,  when  conscious- 
ness accompanies  such  nervous  activity.  Feeling  modes  then 
are  resultants  of  internal  neural  adjustments  or  of  internal 
neural  interferences,  which  correlation  probably  is  made  in  the 
cortex  only  when  feeling  is  experienced.  It  is  absurd  to  speak 
of  these  feeling  modes  as  the  cause  of  such  neural  relations, 
which  go  over  into  overt  activity  as  acts  in  the  common  usage 
of  that  term,  unless  we  do  so  in  the  sense  that  if  there  had  not 
been  such  supplementation  and  interference  or  inhibition  of 
processes  (resulting  at  times  in  such  feelings  and  also  in  more 
or  less  corresponding  acts)  we  should  have  acted  differently.15 
But  this  is  not  an  efficient  and  functional  explanation  of  the  act. 
It  would  be  just  as  absurd  also  to  say  that  feeling  dictates  causa- 
tive ideas  or  dictates  their  recall  in  memory.  The  idea,  like  the 
act,  can  be  accounted  for  only  on  the  basis  of  the  whole  neural 

15  Cf.  Meyer,  Psy.  Rev.,  XV,  319. 


38  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

set.  The  feeling  mode  must  be  explained  in  terms  of  the  corre- 
lation of  parts  of  that  set,  of  processes,  with  each  other. 

However,  we  can  appeal  from  objective  analysis  and  the 
experimental  method  to  the  evidence  of  introspection  (though 
this  sort  of  appeal  is  no  longer  in  the  best  standing),  and  we 
may  get  a  confirmation  of  the  direct  or  indirect  causal  nature 
of  feeling.  Certainly  introspection  tells  us  that  we  frequently 
choose  activities  because  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  they  will 
afford  pleasantness  and  avoid  others  because  they  usually  give 
unpleasantness.  This  of  course  is  all  on  the  assumption  that 
the  idea  of  the  thing  can  cause  the  act,  which  was  discussed  in 
the  paragraph  immediately  preceding.16  It  is  generally  held,  how- 
ever, that  the  feeling  itself  cannot  be  representative17  and  thus 
cannot  cause  the  act  in  the  same  way  as  the  idea  is  supposed  to 
be  able  to  do.  It  is  the  idea  of  the  act,  which  it  is  believed  will 
result  in  certain  feeling  modes,  that  is  supposed  to  be  the  cause 
of  the  representatively  or  ideationally  caused  or  accompanied 
act.18  Introspection,  then,  tells  us  that  we  do  frequently  choose 
future  activities  with  reference  to  whether  they  will  be  pleasant 
or  unpleasant.  And  it  also  tells  us  that  we  perhaps  at  least  as 
often  choose  activities  without  regard  for  or  despite  their  pre- 
visioned  feeling  results.  The  introspective  evidence  is  as  valid 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.19 

Accepting  the  introspective  account  and  the  introspective 
terminology,  what  activities  may  we  say,  then,  are  the  result  of 
feeling,  in  the  sense  that  the  perceived  hedonic  consequences  of 
an  act  influence  our  choice  of  action  and  ends?  It  becomes 

19  Cf.  also  notes  9,  10,  and  n  above,  this  chapter. 

17  Cf.  Angell,  Psy.,  266-67. 

18  Cf.  James,  op.  cit.,  II,   580;   Thorndike,  op.  cit.;  also  Ribot,  op.  cit.,   190: 

"A    1'origine,    le    plaisir    est    un    effet Plus    tard,    il    devient    une    cause 

d'action." 

19  This  type  of  case  where  introspection  tells  us  that  we  choose  the  pleasant 
act  and  avoid  the  unpleasant  is  not  different  from  the  supposed  type  of  cases, 
abstracted   by  the   older  philosophers,   in   which   pleasure   and  pain   were   spoken 
of    as    direct    causes,    except    in    the    amount    of    time    intervening    between    the 
stimulus  and  the  response.     In  the  latter  type  the  choice  and  the  feeling  seem 
to  be  synchronous. 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE  ACT 


39 


clear  at  once,  as  Marshall  points  out,20  that  a  large  number  of 
unforeseen  or  stubborn  circumstances  interrupt  the  course  of  our 
mental  and  neural  action  and  thus  cause  dissatisfaction.  But 
allowing  for  these  interruptions,  in  how  far  yet  can  we  con- 
sciously seek  pleasure  and  find  it?  The  answer  appears  to  be, 
In  so  far  as  we  have  the  technique  and  ability  for  molding  all 
objective  social  and  physical  processes  and  transformations  to 
fit  our  immediate  subjective  ends  and  adjustments.  That  is,  if 
we  make  the  experience  of  pleasantness  and  the  avoidance  of 
unpleasantness  the  end  of  our  endeavors,  we  can  realize  this  end 
in  so  far  as  we  can  immediately  and  in  the  large  control  our 
environment.  We  must  begin  first  to  control  our  ideational  and 
imaginal  processes  to  this  end.  But  this  cannot  be  done 
most  effectively  without  also  controlling  our  physiological  pro- 
cesses in  the  service  of  both  ideation  and  feeling.  Then,  in 
the  third  place,  we  must  be  able  to  control  our  immediate 
environment  in  the  form  of  material  and  social  conditions,  to 
which  end  the  more  narrowly  "social"  and  financial  conditions 
are  to  some  degree  essential.  And  fourthly,  and  least  of  all, 
we  must  be  able  to  exert  an  effective  though  indirect  control 
over  the  wider  societary  environment — at  least  enough  to  make 
sure  of  our  immediate  physiological  and  narrowly  "social" 
adjustments. 

This  method  is  employed  constantly  with  more  or  less  suc- 
cess and  with  varying  emphasis  upon  different  details.  Eastern 
voluptuaries  and  tyrants  have  tried  it  and  have  fairly  succeeded 
— at  least  so  long  as  they  could  control  their  adjustments  as 
described  above.21  Artists  of  all  sorts  have  traditionally  been 
accustomed  to  withdraw  themselves  into  an  esoteric  world  in 
which  the  chief  assets  of  their  happiness  appear  to  be  their 
reveries  which  go  along  with  their  "artistic  temperaments,"  the 

20  Op.  cit.,  350-51. 

21  It   has   long  been  a   custom   of   deposed  monarchs,   politicians,   etc.,   to   go 
into  "retirement"  and  to  assemble  about  them  as  much  of  their  petty  parapher- 
nalia as  possible  and  to  piece  out  the  situation  by  living  on  their  memories.     The 
Roman  emperor  Diocletian,  who  could  not  control  his  kingdom,  took  up  cabbage 
raising   and   evidently   would   have   been   happy   if   he   could   have   persuaded   his 
rival  to  grow  cabbages  also. 


40  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

reverence  which  the  unsophisticated  have  for  them,  and  non- 
interference from  a  world  of  fact.  Indeed  it  has  been  asserted 
repeatedly  by  artists  and  litterateurs  that  genius  is  a  lawless 
thing.22  Among  the  most  successful  devotees  of  this  general 
method  of  securing  pleasure  and  avoiding  unpleasant  experience, 
however  unconscious  the  devotees  may  be  of  the  philosophy  of 
the  method,  are  the  women  and  men  of  fashion  and  pleasure. 
These  are  especially  conspicuous  in  our  modern  world,  where 
mechanical  technique  makes  possible  the  accumulation  of  vast 
wealth  and  numerous  accessories  of  personal  satisfaction;  but 
they  were  not  lacking  to  earlier  societies.  The  elaborate  func- 
tions and  social  ceremonies  of  Rome  were  second  only  in  the 
matter  of  refinement  of  adjustments  to  the  social  whirl  and 
dissipation  in  modern  Paris  or  any  great  European  or  Ameri- 
can city.23  Less  striking  examples  can  be  found  in  the  men 
with  "hobbies"  anywhere,  the  devotee  of  a  game,  the  profes- 
sional gambler,  all  types  of  hedonic  amateurs,  so  long  as  these 
"hobbies,"  etc.,  remain  personal  penchants.  Such  satisfaction 

22  Modern  society   appears  quite   confused   as   to   whether  this   is   the   proper 
statement  or  whether  it  should  be,  Lawlessness  is  genius.     Perhaps  there  is  not 
enough  difference  between  the  two  formulae  to  argue  about. 

23  The   details   of  the  practice   by  which   a  modern   woman   of   fashion  lives 
a  butterfly  life  of  pleasures  are  too  familiar  from  the  literature  of  the  time  to 
require    description    here.      Her   thoughts    are    not    arduous,    but    she    takes    the 
utmost  care — by  proxy — that  there  shall  be  no   discord  in  them.     A   large  part 
of   her  time   is   given   to   the   luxurious   care    of   her   body — by   others — and    the 
remainder  is  divided  between  her  clothes  and  fashionable  functions  or  personal 
and    sensuous    gratifications,    involving    ceaseless    change    and    inconstancy    or 
anarchy   of  social  purpose.      Practically   all   the   ordinary  gross    stimuli,   such   as 
light   and   color   effects,    sound,   touch,   taste,   and    odor,   are   carefully   controlled 
for  her.     Customary  morality  in  many  cases  drops  out,  especially  in  the  realm 
of  sexual   experience,  where  social  conformity   would   make   inroads  upon   other 
pleasurable  adjustments.     Financial  adjustments  remain  so  much  on  the  margin 
of   her   experience    that   they    rarely    come    into    her   consciousness,    except    at   a 
crisis  in   her   career.     The   matter   of  her   more   narrowly   "social"   adjustments, 
the  problem  of  retaining  her  prestige  and  of  eliminating  her   "'inferiors,"  per- 
haps disturbs  her  most.     Such  a  picture  has  a  feeble  counterpart  in  the  Greek 
and  Roman  courtesans   (cf.  DeCassagnac,  History  of  the  Working  Classes,  chap, 
xvii)    and  in  the   harems   of  the   East  of  today.     It  is   an  extreme   illustration, 
but  it  is  not  untrue  to  the  facts,  and  is  the  nearest  approach  to  perfect  unin- 
terrupted self-gratification  that  the  modern  and   "strenuous"   western  world   can 
boast. 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   ACT  41 

is  necessarily  individualistic,  and  the  more  one's  satisfactions 
become  dependent  upon  a  wider  and  more  objective  field  of 
control  the  less  invariably  is  one  likely  to  be  satisfied — at  least 
under  the  present  social  order. 

But  the  really  social  individual,  in  the  broader  sense,  is  not 
the  one  who  acts  with  individual  reference,  that  is,  with  the 
production  of  subjective  or  conscious  states  as  his  end.  The 
person  who  attempts  to  understand  the  world  and  to  work  for 
efficient  social  control  and  expression  is  the  one  who  operates 
with  reference  to  social  processes  in  the  wide,  whose  end  is  the 
securing  of  a  co-ordinated  or  social  adjustment  to  nature  or  to 
the  whole  process  of  life,  in  whatever  terms  he  may  express  his 
intent  or  in  whatever  manner  he  may  act.  He  attempts  to  dis- 
cover the  conditions  of  the  most  effective  social  life  and  then 
to  bring  these  conditions  about  and  to  adjust  himself  to  them. 
The  life  and  growth  of  the  group,  often  of  the  broadest  group/ 
not  his  own  individual  happiness,  not  an  economy  of  personal 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness,  become  his  criterion.  While 
the  hedonist  begins  by  seeking  to  control  his  own  mental  and 
bodily  processes  in  the  interest  of  his  personal  satisfactions,  the 
social  individual,  the  one  who  has  a  scientific  social  criterion 
of  conduct,  rather  than  the  socius  de  facto?*  begins  with  group 
and  race  adjustment.  As  earlier  pointed  out,  his  criterion  is 
social  conservation  rather  than  individual  gratification.  It  can- 
not be  said  of  such  an  individual  either  that  he  seeks  pleasure 
or  that  he  finds  it  in  the  largest  or  most  constant  measure,  but 
that  he  is  effective  or  functional  in  a  progressively  social  world. 

This  type  as  such  is  just  emerging.  It  had  its  forerunners 
in  all  those  who  caught  glimpses  of  a  civic  spirit  and  rebelled 
against  a  narrow  personal  standard.  The  Stoics,  the  patriots  of 
all  ages,  frequently  the  founders  of  religions,  the  advocates  of 
divine  right  in  government,  the  advocates  of  the  theory  of  the 
moral  sense  and  like  doctrines,  who  sought  to  make  authority 

24  All  individuals  are  of  course  social  in  the  question-begging  sense  that  they 
exist  in  a  world  of  people  and  were  born  with  capacities  for  adjustment  to  that 
world  (cf.  Mead,  op.  cit.,  and  Houssay,  Rev.  philosophique  [May,  1893],  475). 
but  this  does  not  necessarily  signify  that  they  are  constructively  or  progressively 
social. 


42  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

broader  than  mere  individual  whim  and  pleasure,  are  examples. 
But  practically  all  of  them  remained  personal  and  subjectivistic 
in  their  criteria.  The  self  of  the  individual  or  of  the  deity  or 
monarch  was  the  final  arbiter.  Cases  of  asceticism  or  of  self- 
torture  of  the  kind  indulged  in  by  St.  Simon  Stylites  were 
doubtless  protests  against  a  hedonistic  order  but  were  ineffective 
because  they  could  not  get  away  from  a  subjectivistic  criterion 
and  fix  upon  objective  social  service  as  a  substitute.  There  was 
no  conception  and  analysis  of  society  which  would  permit  of 
this  substitution.  The  nearest  approach  to  the  modern  type  was 
the  patriot  who  accepted  the  traditional  spirit  of  his  country  or 
city  as  the  inspiration  of  his  cause.  This  was  a  collectivistic 
rather  than  an  individualistic  criterion,  though  not  a  scientifically 
determined  criterion.  The  same  collectivistic  criterion  can,  of 
course,  in  some  measure  be  attributed  also  to  the  absolutism  of 
the  priestly  and  political  powers.  But  the  modern  socius  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  earlier  in  so  far  as  he  approaches  to  a  scien- 
tific social  criterion  of  conduct. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  truly 
social  individual,  because  he  does  not  seek  pleasure  or  happi- 
ness, never  experiences  satisfaction.25  In  the  first  place  no  one 
is  truly  social  in  an  inadequately  social  world.  In  an  adequately 
controlled  social  world  the  results  of  seeking  to  further  that 
control  doubtless  come  more  and  more  .to  be  pleasurable.  That 
is,  one's  habitual  and  conscious  attitudes,  based  upon  a  knowl- 
edge of  social  facts  and  laws  rather  than  upon  mere  conformity 
to  the  existing  social  order,  regardless  of  what  it  may  be -on  a 
wider  view,  on  the  one  hand,  and  not  upon  self -gratification  on 
the  other  hand,  come  to  be  less  and  less  interrupted  and  broken 
down  as  the  world  becomes  more  completely  and  scientifically 
rather  than  whimsically  socially  controlled.  Again,  one  may 
choose  his  activity  with  regard  to  the  broader  ends  or  more 
scientifically  determined  values  of  the  group  or  social  organism 
as  a  whole,  because  he  sees  in  a  particular  case  that  such  a 

25  The  Stoics,  Puritans,  and  other  sects  and  factions  appear  to  have  pushed 
a  general  truth  to  the  extreme  in  assuming  that  because  the  righteous  or  social 
individual  cannot  always  be  happy,  it  should  be  his  constant  endeavor  never  to 
be  so  or  not  to  seem  so. 


THE   CAUSE   OF   THE   ACT 


43 


course  will  also  bring  him  more  personal  satisfaction.  But,  as 
social  life  and  activities  are  now  organized,  at  least,  such  coinci- 
dence of  the  wider  and  more  far-reaching  social  good  and  his 
personal  satisfaction  does  not  often  occur;  and  perhaps  with 
man  as  he  is — still  largely  a  creature  of  early  instinctive  adjust- 
ments to  conditions  of  race  survival  mainly  on  the  level  of  the 
lower  co-ordinations  and  processes — such  coincidence  can  never 
be  made  complete.26  The  nearest  approach  to  accomplishing  such 
a  thing  is  to  control  social  activity  in  such  a  way  and  to  such 
an  extent  that  the  desired  habits  can  replace  mere  instinct  and 
the  fortuitously  or  wrongly  acquired  habits  now  dominant, 
when  these  conflict  with  the  desired  order.  But  this  is  neces- 
sarily an  unpleasant  task.  It  is  further  true  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  always  working  in  a  "good,  even  if  hopeless"  cause  may 
react  pleasurably  upon  the  actor,  and  this  is  doubtless  in  the 
majority  of  cases  a  great  sustaining  factor.  But  if  it  is  too 
much  relied  upon  it  is  almost  certain  to  turn  one  into  the  self- 
satisfied  and  dogmatic  reformer  who  himself  becomes  a  hedonist 
in  the  place  of  a  social  individual  or  true  socius.27 

In  addition  to  the  conclusions  drawn  in  connection  with 
the  discussion  of  the  various  theories  of  the  cause  of  the  act, 
further  implications  of  primary  importance  which  should  be 
carried  over  from  the  present  and  preceding  chapters  for  appli- 
cation to  the  subsequent  discussion  are:  (i)  that  feeling  is  a 
purely  individualistic  and  subjectivistic  criterion  of  evaluation, 
(2)  that  feeling  can  be  a  cause  of  activity  only  when  mental 
states  or  processes  rather  than  objective  social  results  are  made 
the  ends  of  attention  and  effort,  (3)  that  pleasurable  feeling 
can  become  attached  to  any  activity  regardless  of  the  social  or 
even  individual  value  of  that  activity,  and  hence  (4)  that  the 
sanction  or  evaluation  of  feeling  upon  conduct  is  worthless  as  a 
criterion  of  the  individual  or  social  utility  of  that  conduct. 

26  "No    proposition    can    be    more    palpably    and    egregiously    false    than    the 
assertion  that  as  far  as  this  world  is  concerned  it  is  invariably  conducive  to  the 
happiness   of   a   man   to   pursue   the   most   virtuous    career." — Lecky,   History   of 
European  Morals   (New  York,   1884),  61.     Leslie   Stephen  takes  the  same  view, 
though   an  advocate  of  the  doctrine  that  all  activity  is  caused  by  feeling.     Cf. 
Science  of  Ethics,  433. 

27  Cf.  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  303. 


IV.     THEORIES  OF  THE  END  OF  ACTIVITY 

INTRODUCTION. FROM  HOBBES  TO  ROUSSEAU. (l)  SELF-GRATI- 
FICATION AS  END. (2)  FEELING  HARMONIZED  WITH  CON- 
TROL.  (3)  THE  TRANSITION  TO  EMPHASIS  UPON  SOCIAL 

CONTROL. (4)     THE    NEC-UTILITARIANS    OR    SOCIAL    ETHI- 

CISTS. (5)     OTHER    SUBJECTIVISTIC    THEORIES. (6)     THE 

TRANSITION   TO   SOCIOLOGY 

<ft  is  the  task  of  this  chapter  to  enter  into  an  account  of 
typical  views  of  the  end  of  activity,  tracing  the  line  of  develop- 
ment, so  far  as  space  will  allow,  through  the  various  types  of 
subjectivistic  criteria  in  ethical  and  social  writing  to  the  present 
transition  to  a  functional  and  objective  sociology^  The  writers 
here  treated,  together  with  the  views  they  represent,  can  be 
classified  most  conveniently  under  six^  heads.  First  are  the 
frankly  hedonistic  theorists  and  agitators  who  regard  pleasure, 
happiness,  self-gratification  as  the  legitimate  end  of  all  activity 
and  abhor  social  control  accordingly.  This  type  may  be  illus- 
trated by  William  Morris  and  Nietzsche.  Closely  related  to 
these  theorists  in  origin  and  growing  up  parallel  and  in  close 
connection  with  them  is  another  class  of  men  who  urge  the 
same  end  of  activity,  but  who  do  not  conceive  of  the  end  as  in 
any  way  opposed  to  legitimate  and  effective  social  control,  but 
rather  as  an  aid  to  it.  Fourier  and  Bentham  may  be  used  to 
•  illustrate  this  type.  Under  the  pressure  of  criticism  Milr  and 
Spencer  and  their  contemporaries  came  to  modify  the  bases  of 
their  doctrine  of  pleasure  or  happiness  as  the  end;  and  their 
views  furnish  the  material  for  the  third  division.  After  Mill 
and  Spencer,  and  even  contemporary  with  them,  came  a  group 
of  writers  who  may  be  called  neo-utilitarians  or  social  ethicists 
for  lack  of  better  terms.  They  make  prominent  the  idea  of 
reference  to  social  control,  but  set  up  pleasure  as  the  end  or 
good,  frequently  displaying  a  poorly  reconciled  opposition 
between  social  morality  and  hedonic  self-realization.  These 

44 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  45 

writers  constitute  the  fourth  division.  In  the  fifth  division  are 
classed  the  various  subjectivistic  theories  centering  about  some 
other  criterion  than  the  "seeking  of  pleasure"  and  the  "avoid- 
ance of  pain,"  or  at  least  implying  such  real  or  pseudo-facts  as 
conscience,  the  moral  sense,  inner  harmony,  reason,  self-realiza- 
tion, maximum  activity,  as  the  final  objects  of  reference  in 
activity.  The  final  group  of  theorists  is  made  up  of  the  tran- 
sitional sociologists,  that  is,  those  thinkers  on  social  questions 
who  were  born  into  the  old  artificial  subjectivism,  but  who  are 
making  the  transition  to  a  functional  sociology.  The  line  of 
transition  through  these  types  of  theory  will  appear  in  the 
development  of  the  chapter. 

Hobbes,  the  father  of  modern  English  psychology  and 
empirical  philosophy,  was  also  the  unwitting  progenitor  of  the 
modern  democratic  movement.  On  the  one  hand  he  started  the 
/  anajy^sis  of  min4  in  specific  and  concrete,  almost  objective,  terms, 
which  was  carried  on  by  Locke,  Hume,  Helvetius,  Hartley,  the 
Scottish  school,  and  has  lately  appeared  in  the  experimental  psy- 
chology and  realistic  and  pragmatic  philosophy.  On  the  other 
hand  he  gave  a  fruitful  impulse  to  the  discussion  of  the  origin  V 
of__authority  in  social  control,  which  coming  down  through 
Locke,  Helvetius,1  Rousseau,  Bentham,  Fourier,  Schiller,  Babceuf, 
Weitling,  Bakunin,  and  others,  has  permeated  all  the  modern 
political  and  social  discussion,  though  the  content  of  the  discus- 
sion has  changed  much  in  the  transition.  Hobbes  stated  the 
thesis  that  man  renounced  the  state  of  nature  which  was  also  a 
state  of  freedom  and  of  war,  and  accepted  civilized  life  2  con- 

1  Helvetius  almost  reproduces  Hobbes  (without  citing  him)   in  some  parts  of 
his  writings,  especially  on  the  genesis  of  the  social  contract,  his  theory  of  feeling 
as  a  means  of  control,  etc.   (op.  cit.,  322  ff.).     I  am  convinced  that  a  further 
study  of   Helvetius  and  his  connections  will  show  that  he  had   a  much  wider 
influence   in   spreading  the   doctrines   of   Hobbes    and   his   immediate   successors 
than  is  now  generally  recognized. 

2  The   term    civilized   peoples,   in   the   sense    of   socially   or   state    controlled 
peoples,  appears  in  Helvetius  (op.  cit.,  292,  325)  policees  peuples,  and  in  the  Ger- 
man at  a  little  later  date  as  polizierte  V biker  (Professor  Small  has  found  the 
usage  in  Busch,  op.  cit.),  in  each  case  used  in  the  same  sense,  of  people  under 
coercive    or    compulsory    control    as    a    means    to    civilization.      The    same    idea 
occurs  again,  though  in  much  modified  form,  in  the  French  school  of  sociolo- 
gists in  connection  with  the  theory  of  the  social  organism   (see  below). 


46  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

tractually  as  a  means  of  escaping  pain  and  suffering  and  of 
adding  to  his  satisfactions.3  The  hedonic  motive  which  Hobbes 
put  forth  has  furnished  the  basis  of  practically  all  later  theories, 
and  has  not  until  very  recently  been  modified.4  Locke  made  the 
first  significant  transition  toward  a  theory  of  democracy  on  the 
new  basis  when  he  made  the  contract  two-sided,5  while  Rousseau 
went  even  farther  in  modifying  the  terms  of  the  contract  so  as 
to  make  it  wholly  an  expression  of  the  popular  will  and  depend- 
ent on  nothing  else.6  At  this  point  Hobbes's  germinal  idea  had 
blossomed  into  the  green  fruit  of  democracy,  and  we  need  not 
at  this  point  trace  the  connection  farther.  t 

Rousseau,  however,  reversed  one  of  the  principles  of  Hobbes 
in  giving  form  to  the  theory  that  man  made  a  mistake  in  coming 
out  of  the  state  of  nature,  which  according  to  Rousseau  was 
not  a  state  of  war  as  Hobbes  had  described  it,  but  a  state  of 
peace,  happiness,  and  innocence.7  True  to  the  poetic  tradition  8 
he  had  his  golden  age  in  the  past.  As  the  formulator  of  this 
view  Rousseau  became  the  father  of  modern  philosophic  anarch- 
ism. With  the  best  of  evidence  the  nihilistic  doctrines  of 

'  Leviathan,  loc.  cit.,  chaps,  xiii-xiv. 

4  The  scattered  adherents  of  a  theocratic  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  social 
control  would,  of  course,  accept  the  hedonic  statement  of  the  origin  of  social 
control  with  reservations  or  reject  it  entirely  (Paley  combines  the  idea  of  reve- 
lation and  the  pleasure  and  pain  motive — the  "fear  of  hell" — in  control.  Cf. 
Principles  of  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  Bk.  I,  chap,  vi ;  Bk.  II,  chaps  vi-viii ; 
also  Martineau,  op.  cit.,  II,  234.  Sidgwick  classes  Paley  as  a  utilitarian  because  of 
this  attitude.  Cf.  Hist,  of  Ethics  (ad  ed.),  238  ff.  Mill  strongly  resents  this 
characterization.  Cf.  "Professor  Sidgwick's  Discourse  on  the  Studies  of  the 
University  of  Cambridge"  in  Dissertations  and  Discussions  (Boston,  1868),  I, 
150.  But  the  theocratic  theorists  are  negligible.  The  dominant  line  of  develop- 
ment of  the  theory  of  social  control  has  been,  of  course,  in  modern  times  from 
the  contract  theory  of  Hobbes  down  to  the  completest  evolutionary  and  natural- 
istic statement  of  the  theory  of  the  present. 

6  Cf.  Locke's  Second  Treatise  on  Government,  Bk.  II,  chap.  viii. 

•Cf.  The  Social  Contract  (transl.  Harrington),  Bk.  I,  chaps,  vi-vii ;  Bk.  IV, 
chap.  i. 

7  Cf.  Discours  siir  I'origine  de   I'inegalite,  especially   the   Preface.      Morellet 
(Le  code  de  la  nature,  1755)   expresses  about  the  same  view,  in  a  more  crude 
way. 

8  Rousseau  was   not,  of  course,  a  scientist,  but  a  popularizer  and  a  senti- 
mentalist. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  47 

Bakunin,  which  have  both  directly  and  indirectly  so  strongly 
influenced  modern  pseudo-social  and  literary  writing,  and  hence 
popular  thinking,  have  been  traced  back  to  him.9  Socialism 
also  as  a  part  of  the  general  modern  democratic  movement  owes 
much  to  Rousseau.10  It  is  to  the  more  anarchistic  and  to  the 
socialistic  variants  which  are  traceable  to  Rousseau  that  the  first 
group  of  examples  in  this  chapter  belongs,  while  the  other 
groups,  with  a  partial  exception  for  the  second,  come  for  the 
most  part  within  the  limits  of  the  more  conventional  movement 
of  democracy. 

I.  JWilliam  Morris  takes  happiness  and  democratic  gratifica- 
tion to  be  the  criterion  of  the  end  of  life  and  action,11  and  for 
its  attainment  all  social  revolution  or  change  must  occur.12  Gov- 
ernment stands  in  the  way  of  the  attainment  of  this  end.13  He 
rebels  even  at  the  idea  of  a  coercive  public  opinion,14  and  holds 
that  pleasure  from  the  satisfaction  of  natural  desires  is  the  proper 
guide  to  conduct.15  Crime  does  not  require  punishment,  for 
"In  a  society  where  there  is  no  punishment  to  evade,  no  law  to 
triumph  over,  remorse  will  certainly  follow  transgression." 
His  ideal  of  life  is  a  non-coercive  communism  where  the  love  of 

9  Cf.  Graham,  Socialism  New  and  Old,  67-68.     Ibsen  confesses  to  inspira- 
tion   from    Bakunin,    and    G.    B.    Shaw    asserts    his    discipleship    to    Ibsen.      Cf. 
The  Quintessence  of  Ibsenism. 

10  Graham,  op.  cit.,  59  ff. 

""•  News  from  Nowhere  (Boston,  1890),  80.  M Ibid.,  128. 

13 Ibid.,  104.  Also:  "It  would  be  possible  for  us  to  contend  with  and  rob 
each  other,  but  it  would  be  harder  for  us  than  refraining  from  strife  and  rob- 
bery. That  is,  in  short,  the  foundation  of  our  life  and  happiness." — Ibid.,  no. 

14  Ibid.,  82. 

15  In   describing   how    the    old    order    failed,    Old    Hammond   said:      "[Most 
crimes]    were   the    result   of   the   laws   of   private   property,    which    forbade   the 
satisfaction   of   their   natural   desires   to    all   but   a   privileged   few,    and   of  the 

general  visible  coercion  which  came  of  those  laws Again,   many  violent 

acts   came   from   the  artificial  perversion   of  the  sexual  passions,   which   caused 
over-weening  jealousy  and  the  like  miseries  [also  based  on  the  man-made  idea  of 
woman  as  property].     That  idea  has  of  course  vanished  with  private  property, 
as    well    as    certain    follies    about    the    "ruin"    of    women    for    following    their 
natural   desires   in   an   illegal   way,    which   was,   of   course,    a   convention   caused 
by  the  laws  of  private  property." — Ibid.,  112. 

ulbid.f  114. 


48  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

work  will  be  a  sufficient  bond.17  His  ideal  of  "real  learning" 
is  "knowledge  cultivated  for  its  own  sake — the  Art  of  Knowl- 
edge, in  short^' 18 

Nietzsche  in  a  way  returns  to  the  basic  principle  of  Hobbes, 

i'n  declaring  that  the  focus  of  all  activities  and  ends  is  in  a 
lesire  to  escape  suffering,  "in  a  longing  for  stupefaction  of  pain 
hrough  emotion." 19  This  suffering  is  age-long,  generally ' 
recognizable  in  the  feeling  of  guilt  which  has  its  origin  in  "a 
bit  of  animal  psychology — no  more."  The  relief  from  this 
unpleasant  feeling  is  the  exercise  of  the  instinct  of  the  will  to 
power.'2'1  The  ascetic  priesthood  have  always  studied  to  repress 
this  "instinct"  and  to  deepen  the  feeling  of  guilt,  thus  robbing 
mankind  of  happiness.22  Modern  science  is  the  ally  of  the 
priesthood  in  this  theft  of  happiness.23  The  only  hope  for 
humanity  is  in  breaking  away  from  both,  in  exalting  the  egoistic 
blond  beast,  and  then  the  hobgoblin  "morality  will  die."  He 
looks  for  this  transformation  within  the  next  two  hundred 
years.24 

II.  Charles  Fourier  was  in  large  measure  the  prototype  of 
theorists  like  William  Morris  and  was  a  follower  of  Rousseau 
and  Helvetius,  especially  in  so  far  as  the  doctrine  that  pleasure 

17 Ibid.,  127.  Also:  ".  .  .  .  Those  more  enlightened  men  who  were  then 
[under  the  old  order]  called  Socialists,  although  they  well  knew,  and  even  stated 
in  public,  that  the  only  reasonable  condition  of  society  was  that  of  pure  com- 
munism (such  as  you  now  see  around  you),  yet  shrunk  from  what  seemed  to 
them  the  barren  task  of  preaching  the  realization  of  a  happy  dream." — Ibid.,  145. 

"Ibid.,  97. 

19  A  Genealogy  of  Morals  (transl.  Hausmann,  New  York,  1897),  176.  Plato, 
Leibniz,  Kant,  Fichte,  Hegel,  Schopenhauer,  all  regarded  pleasure  as  cessation 
of  pain  or  discomfort,  as  does  Nietzsche  here.  Cf.  Wright,  op.  cit.,  VI,  72-91. 

20 Ibid.,  196.  Elsewhere  he  explains  the  origin  of  this  "feeling"  differently: 
"The  feeling  of  guilt  ....  and  of  personal  obligation  has  ....  its  origin  in 
the  oldest  and  most  primitive  personal  relationship  which  ever  existed — the 
relationship  between  buyer  and  seller,  creditor  and  debtor." — Ibid,  82-83. 

21  Ibid.,   1 88  ff.     Technically,   Nietzsche  does   not  make  feeling   or  happiness 
the  end  of  action,  but  substitutes  the  criterion  of  will  to  power.     But  since  he 
understands  by  pleasure  a  feeling  of  increased  power  and  by  pain  a  feeling  of 
diminished   power,   his   criterion   resolves   itself   finally   into    a   simple    hedonistic 
subjectivistic  statement  of  the  end  of  activity.     (Cf.   Werke,  XIII,  254,  271   ff. ; 
XV,  323,  33i  if.) 

22  Genealogy  of  Morals,   190  ff.  ™  Ibid.,  214-15.  2*  Ibid.,  225. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY 


49 


is  the  end  of  action  is  concerned.   -However,  he  believed  in  a 
form  of  social  control,  meager  in  scope  though  the  control  was 
to  be./  For  him  the  law  of  happiness  is  to  social  science  what  I 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  to  physics.25    He  held  that  the  instincts  | 
and  impulses  are  naturally  good  and  that  the  way  to  happiness 
is  to  follow  them.26     Therefore  it  is  necessary  to  study  these  ) 
impulses  or  attractions  coming  from  nature  instead  of  the  arti-  I 
ficial  duties  recommended  by  the  philosophers.27    He  recognizes 
that  to  follow  the  lead  of  our  sensuous  appetites  (to  which  he 
mainly  refers)28  may  get  us  into  trouble,  but  that  is  only  because 
our  social  organization  is  such  as  it  is,  and  with  the  proper  social 
reorganization  this  disturbance  would  be  removed.     Hence  the 
necessity  for  instituting  the  system  of  the  phalanstery.29     One 
of  the  incidents  of  the  change  in  social  control  which  he  urges 

25  Cf.   Theorie   des  quatre  mouvements,   107    (ad  ed.,   (Euvres,   Paris,    1846). 
Compare    Helvetius,    op,    cit.,    322 ;    also    Lester    F.    Ward,    Psychic   Factors    of 
Civilization,  55,  94,  and  Dynamic  Sociology,  I,  486-87. 

26  "L'attraction     passionnee     est     1'impulsion     donnee     par     la    nature     ante- 
rieurement    a   la    reflexion,    et   persistante    malgre    1'opposition    de    la    raison,    du 
devoir,    du   prejuge,   etc." — Nouveau   monde   industriel   et   societaire,   (Euv.    (26. 
ed.),  47. 

"Le  monde  savante  est  tout  imbu  d'une  doctrine  appelee  MORALE,  qui  est 
mortelle  ennemie  de  1'attraction  passionnee.  La  morale  enseigne  a  rhomme  a 
etre  en  guerre  avec  lui-meme,  resister  a  ses  passions,  les  reprimer,  croire  que 
Dieu  n'a  pas  su  organiser  sagement  nos  ames,  nos  passions ;  qu'il  avait  besoin 
des  lemons  de  Platon  et  Seneque  pour  apprendre  a  distribuer  les  caracteres  et  les 
instincts.  Imbu  de  ces  prejuges  sur  1'imperitie  de  Dieu,  le  monde  savant 
etait  inhabile  au  calcul  des  impulsions  naturelles  ou  attractions  passionnees,  que 
la  morale  proscrit  et  relegue  au  rang  des  vices." — Ibid.,  125  (quoted  from  Gide, 
Charles  Fourier:  (Euvres  choisies,  n). 

"Les  passions  qu'on  croit  ennemies  de  la  concorde  ne  tendent  qu'a  cette 
unite  dont  nous  les  jugeons  si  eloignees." — Gide,  op.  cit.,  12. 

27  "Tous   ces   caprices  philosophiques,   appeles   des  devoirs,   n'ont   aucun   rap- 
port avec  la  nature ;  le  devoir  vient  des  hommes,  1'attraction  vient  de  Dieu ;  or, 
si   Ton  veut  connaitre  les  vues  de   Dieu,   il  faut  etudier  1'attraction,   la  nature 
seule,  sans  aucune  acception  du  devoir  qui  varie  dans  chaque  siecle,  tandis  que  la 
nature  des  passions  a  etc  et  restera  invariable  chez  tous  les  peuples." — Theorie 
des  quatre  mouvements,   107   (from  Gide,  op.  cit.,   10).     Compare  on  the  matter 
of  duty  G.  B.  Shaw,  Quintessence  of  Ibsenism  (New  York,  1904),  44-45. 

23  See  his  classifications,  Nouveau  monde  industriel  et  societaire  (OSuvres, 
he.  cit.),  47  ff. 

29  Ibid. ,  99  ff.     See  also  Gide,  op.  cit.,  13. 


50  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

is  that  women  should  be  sexually  free  at  the  age  of  eighteen/10 
The  wide  influence  of  Fourier  after  his  death  is  well  known. 
In  1841  Considerant  lectured  at  Dijon,31  on  the  prospects  of 
Fourierism  and  "there  was  loud  and  prolonged  applause  among 
an  enthusiastic  audience." 

Bentham  was  much  less  radical  and  visionary  than  Fourier. 
His  line  of  theoretical  descent  is  direct  from  Hobbes  down 
through  Locke  and  Hume,  both  of  whom  held  to  the  theory  that 
the  seeking  of  pleasure  and  the  avoidance  of  pain  constitute  the 
ends  of  activity.33  From  them  also  he  got  his  empirical  phi- 
losophy and  largely  his  practical  bent  of  mind  which  led  him  to 
seek  to  apply  his  principles  in  common-sense  legislation,  or 
rather  to  seek  a  philosophy  of  motivation  to.  justify  and  explain 
his  practical  measures.  He  desired  exactness.  Though  less 
influenced  by  continental  than  by  English  thought,  he  and 
Fourier  held  much  the  same  views  about  happiness.3*  "'though 
Bentham  regards  "pleasure  and  pain"  as  constituting  the  sole 
motives  of  life,35  he  recognizes  that  they  need  some  social  con- 
trol, some  selection  and  direction,  and  in  this  he  advances  beyond 
Fourier  and  his  type  of  thinkers.36  As  a  guide  to  such  selection 

30  Cf.  Theorie  des  quatre  mouvements,  loc.  cit.,  197. 

81  The  Academy  of  Dijon  had  given  Rousseau  a  prize  in  1750. 

88  Kaufmann,  Utopias,  82. 

33  Cf.  Locke,  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,  Bk.  II,  chap,  xx ; 
and  Hume,  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Bk.  II,  Part  III,  sec.  3. 

"Fourier  says  of  Bentham:  "Je  n'ai  vu  qu'un  ecrivain  civilise"  qui  ait  un 
peu  approche  de  la  definition  du  vrai  bonheur;  c'est  M.  Bentham,  exige  des 
realities  et  non  des  illusions :  tout  les  autres  sont  si  loin  du  but,  qu'ils  ne  sont 
pas  dignes  de  critique." — Nouveau  monde  industriel  et  societaire,  loc.  cit.,  348. 

35  "Nature    has    placed    mankind    under    the    governance    of    two    sovereign 
masters,  pain  and  pleasure.     It  is  for  them  alone  to  point  out  what  we  ought 
to    do,    as   well    as    to    determine    what    we    shall    do.      On    the    one    hand    the 
standard  of  right  and  wrong,  on  the  other  the  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  are 
fastened  to  their  throne.     They  govern  us  in  all  we  do,  in  all  we  say,  in  all  we 

think The   principle    of   utility    (greatest   happiness    or   greatest    felicity) 

recognizes  this  subjection,  and  assumes  it  for  the  foundation  of  that  system,  the 
object  of  which  is  to  rear  the  fabric  of  felicity  by  the  hands  of  reason  and  law." 
— Prin.  of  Morals  and  Legislation,  i. 

36  "Pleasures,  then,  and  the  avoidance  of  pains  are  the  ends  which  the  legis- 
lator has  in  view.    It  behoves  him,  therefore,  to  understand  their  value.    Pleasures 


THEORIES    OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY 


51 


he  makes  an  elaborate  classification  of  pleasures  and  pains  on 
the  ultimate  basis  of  intensity  of  feeling,37  and  later  of  the 
different  degrees  of  susceptibility  of  different  people.38  Aside 
from  his  hedonistic  doctrine  he  takes  a  fairly  objective  and 
scientific  view  of  the  causation  and  social  value  of  the  act.39  His 
theory  of  feeling  is  for  him  only  a  method;  his  object  is  social 
control  and  betterment./ 

IIIJ  The  significant  additions  made  to  the  theory  of  utili- 
tarianism by  John  Stuart  Mill 40  are  ( i )  that  he  develops  the 
concept  of  quality  in  happiness,41  by  which  term  he  understands 
pleasure  and  the  absence  of  pain;42  (2)  that  he  emphasizes  less 
the  negative  side  of  avoidance  of  suffering,  thus  giving  the 
impression  of  a  higher  conception  to  his  theory;  (3)  that  he 
conceives  the  happiness  which  is  desirable  to  be  not  that  of  the 
individual  alone,  but  primarily  that  of  society  or  of  the  greatest 
number;43  and  (4)  that  he  justifies  this  wider  reference  of  the 
principle  of  happiness  on  the  grounds  of  an  acquired  conscience 
and  the  development  of  the  social  feelings  of  mankind.44  It  is 
in  these  additions  that  we  find  him  preparing  the  way  for  the 

and  pains  are  the  instruments  he  has  to  work  with ;  it  behoves  him,  therefore,  to 
understand  their  force,  which  is  again,  in  another  point  of  view,  their  value." — 
Ibid.,  1 6. 

37/&tU,  16  ff.  sslbid.,  21  «.  "Ibid.,  35. 

*>  The  justification  for  making  a  separate  division  for  Mill  and  Spencer  as 
representatives  of  a  tendency  of  thought  may  be  doubted.  They  have  their 
place  because  they  represent  a  radical  transition  in  social  and  ethical  theory. 
Both  had  encyclopedic  minds,  such  as  transitional  periods  require  of  their 
leaders.  Mill's,  because  of  his  training,  was  a  mirror  for  all  the  information 
and  theory  of  the  past  toward  which  he  always  turned  sympathetically.  Even 
his  arguments  for  the  emancipation  of  women  and  for  greater  liberty  are 
platonic  on  the  one  hand  and  Eighteenth  Century  on  the  other.  Spencer's  train- 
ing in  natural  science  and  his  wealth  of  ill-digested,  but  modern,  social  facts 
on  the  other  hand,  led  him  to  look  resolutely  to  the  future  and  frequently  to 
deny  his  obvious  indebtedness  to  the  past,  to  formally  espouse  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  which  he  endeavored  to  apply  to  ethics  and  sociology,  arriving  how- 
ever in  the  main  only  at  classification.  Both  were  in  fact  utilitarians ;  the  one 
an  apologist  for  the  utilitarian  theories  on  old  logical  grounds,  and  the  other 
unconsciously  giving  them  a  new  lease  of  life  through  the  application  of  bio- 
logical and  sociological  arguments  and  analogies. 

41  Utilitarianism  (nth  ed.),  n  ff. 

.,  g.  "Ibid.,  16,  24.  "Ibid.,  25,  41. 


52  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

socio-ethicists  and  neo-utilitarians  to  be  considered  in  the  next 
section.J 

Spejocer  maintained  that  the  utilitarian  criterion,  greatest' 
happiness,  either  for  the  individual  or  for  the  group,  is  unmeas- 
urable,45  and  asserts  that  happiness,  the  legitimate  end  of  action, 
must  be  sought  indirectly  by  fulfilling  the  social  conditions  of 
(i)  equal  justice,  (2)  negative  beneficence,  (3)  positive  benefi- 
cence, and  (4)  pursuance  of  individual  happiness  or  pleasure.46 
'liis  main  contribution,  however,  is  that  he  modified  the  original 
utilitarian  principle,  making  society  the  constant  term  in  adjust- 
ment and  the  individual  the  relative.47  In  this  practical  negation 
of  his  happiness  standard  he  gives  a  distinct  impetus  to  an  objec- 
tive and  social  as  opposed  to  an  individualistic  criterion.  In  his 
Principles  of  Ethics,  however,  he  reaffirms  this  hedonic  cri- 
terion,48 and  finally  brings  in  sympathy — or  sympathetic  grati- 
fication— to  harmonize  the  opposition  between  social  control  and 
hedonic  self -gratification  or  realization.^  To  support  his  theory 

45  Social  Statics  (American  ed.),  8  ff. 

"Ibid.,  33  ff. 

*7"The  social  state  is  a  necessity.  The  conditions  to  the  greatest  happiness 
under  the  state  are  fixed.  Our  characters  are  the  only  things  not  fixed.  They, 
then,  must  be  moulded  into  fitness  for  the  conditions.  And  all  moral  teaching 
and  discipline  must  have  for  its  object  to  hasten  this  process." — Ibid.,  35.  It 
would  not  be  impossible  however  to  put  a  similar  construction  upon  the  teachings 
of  Bentham  and  other  utilitarian  writers,  especially  if  they  had  possessed  an 
adequate  conception  of  the  essentially  unitary  nature  of  society — which  they 
did  not. 

48  "  ....  No  school  can  avoid  taking  for  the  ultimate  moral  aim  a  desirable 
state  of  feeling  called  by  whatever  name — gratification,  enjoyment,  happiness. 
Pleasure  somewhere,  at  some  time,  to  some  being  or  beings,  is  an  inexpugnable 
element,  of  the  conception.  It  is  as  much  a  necessary  form  of  moral  intuition 
as  space  is  a  necessary  form  of  intellectual  intuition." — Op.  cit.  (American  ed.), 
I,  46. 

48  Ibid.,  I,  255.  This  method  of  extending  the  conception  of  the  content  of 
pleasurable  experience  had  also  been  practiced  at  a  much  earlier  date  by  those 
moralists  who  sought  in  the  feelings  a  criterion  of  evaluation  of  activities  which 
would  relieve  them  of  the  necessity  of  reference  to  religious  or  political 
absolutism  as  criteria,  and  who  were  at  the  same  time  unable  to  conceive  of  an 
objective  social  criterion.  Cf.  Hartley,  "Of  the  Six  Classes  of  Intellectual 
Pleasures  and  Pains,"  Observations  on  Man  (4th  ed.),  Part  I,  chap.  iv.  See  also 
Wright,  op  cit.,  31  ff. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  53 

he  resuscitates  the  principle  that  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness 
accompany  useful  and  harmful  actions  respectively,50  but  clothes 
the  statement  in  evolutionary  language.51  To  this  he  adds  the 
principle  that  pleasure  can  be  made  to  accompany  any  activity 
not  inconsistent  with  the  maintenance  of  life,52  and  concludes 
that  sympathy  and  altruism  will  ultimately  be  made  pleasur- 
able by  society,  hence  happiness  or  pleasure  will  be  the  effective 
as  well  as  the  natural  guide.53  He  emphasizes  the  view  that  the 
emotions  or  feelings  (used  by  him  indifferently)  "are  the 
masters,  the  intellect  the  servant,"54  a  principle  later  made  so 
much  of  by  Lester  F.  Ward.  'In  Spencer  we  see,  distinctly, 
signs  of  the  future  as  well  as  of  the  past.  Through  him  utilita- 
rianism ceased  to  be  merely  logical  and  became  "evolutionary/' 
thus  getting  a  new  lease  on  life.  Spencer  marks  the  second 
stage  in  an  acute  transition  of  which  Mill  was  the  first  stagex 

IV.  Contemporary  with  and  subsequent  to  Spencer,  a  new 
school  of  ethicists  arose,  which  may  be  called  the  sqciaLschool, 
and  which  has  acted  as  a  sort  of  link  between  the  old  utilita- 
rianism and  other  types  of  subjectivism  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  rising  school  of  sociology  on  the  other/  In  fact,  Spencer 
himself  belongs  to  this  school,  and  was  in  no  small  sense  its 
founder,  as  he  has  been  to  a  considerable  extent  a  contributor  to 
most  recent  related  disciplines.  The  guiding  principle  of  this 
whole  school  may  be  found  in  Leslie^Stephen  as  well  as  another, 
when  he  traces  morality  ba(^Jo_^cial_£onditions.55  And  he 
does  this  despite  the  fact  that  he  holds  to  the  Benthamite  doc- 
trine that  "conduct  ....  is  determined  by  feeling,"  even  by 

50  Cf.  chap,  iii,  above. 

51  Cf.  Principles  of  Ethics,  I,  79;  and  Prin.  of  Psy.,  I,  sec.  124,  279,  280  ff. 
™Prin.  of  Ethics,  I,  186.  °3  Ibid.,  I,  302. 

54  "Feeling  versus  intellect"  in  Facts  and  Comments  (American  ed.),  38,  43. 

85  "Morality  ....  is  a  product  of  the  social  factor ;  the  individual  is 
moralized  through  his  identification  with  the  social  organism  [cf.  Spencer  and 
the  modern  French  organicists]  ;  the  conditions,  therefore,  of  the  security  of 
morality  are  the  conditions  of  the  persistence  of  society ;  and  if  we  ask  from 
the  scientific  point  of  view  what  these  conditions  are,  we  can  only  reply  by 
stating  that  the  race  is  dependent  upon  the  environment ;  by  tracing,  so  far  as 
we  are  able,  the  conditions  under  which  it  has  been  developed,  and  trying  to 
foresee  the  future  from  the  past." — Science  of  Ethics,  454. 


54  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

present  feeling  and  not  by  mere  representation.56  Like  Spencer 
he  assumes  the  agreement  of  social  and  of  individual  welfare,  of 
life  and  happiness,  but  finds  the  assumption  difficult  to  recon- 
cile with  the  facts;57  so,  like  Spencer  again,  he  bridges  the 
chasm  by  the  introduction  of  altruism  and  sympathy.58 

According  to  Green  also  "the  true  good  is,  and  in  its  earliest 
form  was,  a  social  good,"  in  which  self  and  others  are  not  to  be 
distinguished.59  This  good  is  not  a  succession  of  pleasures  but 
of  objects  which,  when  realized,  contribute  equally  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  "permanent  self"  and  of  society.60  Though  of  a 
different  intellectual  derivation,  he  is,  however,  strongly  influ- 
enced by  the  prevailing  utilitarian  ideas,  and  his  disagreement 
with  the  utilitarians  on  the  subject  of  feeling  appears  more 
imagined  than  real.61  Sidgwick,  however,  finds  two  ends  or 
goods,  "Happiness  and  Perfection  or  Excellence  of  human 
nature — meaning  here  by  'excellence'  not  primarily  superiority 
to  others,  but  a  partial  realization  of,  or  approximation  to,  an 
ideal  type  of  human  perfection."62  In  a  criticism  of  Spencer, 

58  Ibid.,  42,  47.  He  is  closer  to  Bentham  on  this  point  even  than  Mill  is. 
He  says:  "Pain  and  pleasure  are  the  sole  and  ultimate  causes  [of  activity]." 
— Ibid.,  50. 

"Ibid.,  432. 

58  "Therefore  it  may  be,  or  rather  plainly  is,  necessary  for  a  man  to  acquire 
certain   instincts    [.sic'],   among   them    the   altruistic   instincts,    which    fit   him    for 
the  general   conditions   of  life,  though  in   particular   cases  they   may   cause   him 
to  be  more  miserable  than  if  he  were  without  them." — Ibid.,  433. 

59  Cf.  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  sec.  232.  °°  Ibid.,  sees.  234  ff. 

61  "According  to  our  theory  the  human  perfection  identified  with  ultimate 
good  is  a  'state  of  desirable  consciousness,'  though  not  simply  a  state  of  pleasure ; 
and  pleasure  is  anticipated  in  the  attainment  of  the  desired  end,  though  it  is  not 
the  end  desired." — Ibid,  (explanatory  analysis),  sec.  364.  Again:  "According 
to  Mr.  Sidgwick's  theory,  on  the  other  hand,  desirable  consciousness  is  the  same 
as  pleasure,  and  his  Universalistic  Hedonism  (differing  from  the  older  Utilita- 
rianism) seems  to  rest  on  the  position  that  reason  pronounces  ultimate  good  to 
be  desirable  consciousness  or  pleasure,  and,  further,  universal  pleasure." — Ibid., 
sec.  365.  The  difference  here  seems  to  be  merely  formal.  All  this  is  essentially 
the  same  old  subjectivistic  philosophy  in  which  the  emphasis  was  always  upon 
mental  states  instead  of  upon  objective  results. 

63  Methods  of  Ethics,  g. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  55 

however,  he  appears  to  reduce  the  two  ends  to  one.63  H. 
Rashdall,  a  student  of  both  Green  and  Sidgwick,  takes  an  eclec- 
tic position,  adopting  the  happiness  end  of  the  latter,64  and 
making  the  combined  social  and  intuitional  reference  of  the 
former  the  criterion  for  selection  among  impulses  contending 
for  satisfaction.65 

Two  contemporary  social  ethicists,  who  may  be  classed  as 
neo-utilitarians,  are  Frederick  Meakin  and  Professor  Dewey. 
Meakin  takes  very  frankly  the  view  that  pleasure  or  the  idea  of 
experience  which  is  pleasurable  is  the  sole  motive  in  conscious 
choice.66  From  this  view  he  makes  a  quick  transition  to  the 
idea  of  the  essentially  social  nature  of  morality,67  and  bridges 
the  chasm  with  the  social  instinct  [sic]  which  "pervades  all  our 
instincts,"  but  which  he  cannot  quite  conceive  of  as  innate.68 
This  contradiction  throws  him  back  upon  a  long  discussion  of 
the  question,  "Does  morality  demand  of  the  individual  uncom- 
pensated  [in  the  sense  of  unpleasurable  feeling]  sacrifice?"6 
The  possession  of  a  candid  mind  leads  him  ultimately  to  take 
refuge  in  religious  values  and  something  more  than  temporal 
reward  to  avoid  an  affirmative  answer.70  Except  for  this  final 
refuge  his  theory  does  not  differ  essentially  from  that  of  Spen- 
cer or  Stephen. 

Dewey  on  the  other  hand  stands  with  Green  in  denying 
that  pleasure  can  be  the  cause  of  an  act,71  and  distinguishes 
happiness  from  pleasure,  making  the  former  a  social  matter 
rather  than  individual.72  But  social  interests  are  something 

63  He  says :  "We  both  agree  that  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  aggregate 
of  persons  affected  by  actions  is  the  ultimate  end." — Ethics  of  Green,  Spencer, 
and  Martineau,  278. 

"Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  II,  60;  I,  100.  " Ibid.,  I,  100,  180. 

68  Op.  cit.,  90  and  chap.  x.     Meakin  may  be  taken  as  the  most  consistent 
modern  exponent  of  utilitarian  theory. 

67  Ibid.,  chaps,  xi  and  xiv. 

88  Ibid.,  131.  70  Ibid.,  chap,  xxviii. 

69  Ibid.,  chaps,  xxiii  ff.  71  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  269-71. 

72  "The  genuinely  moral  person  ....  will  find  his  happiness  or  satisfaction 
in  the  promotion  of  these  [associational]  activities  irrespective  of  the  particular 
pains  or  pleasures  that  accrue." — Ibid.,  298. 


56  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF    SOCIAL   CONTROL 

broader  than  sympathy,  which  he  regards  as  "a  genuine 
natural  instinct,"  and  by  means  of  which  he  finds  himself  unable 
to  reconcile  the  contradiction  which  had  troubled  earlier  writ- 
ers.73 "What  is  required  is  a  blending,  a  fusing  of  the  sympa- 
thetic tendencies  with  the  other  impulsive  and  habitual  traits 
of  the  self."  74  With  "sympathy  transformed  into  a  habitual 
standpoint"  the  self  becomes  moral,75  and  the  persons  who  have 
most  of  this  are  happiest,  or  at  least  have  the  "best"  happiness.76 
He  assumes  that  all  men  love  happiness  in  the  sense  that 
they  wish  to  realize  their  desires,77  and  he  also  assumes  the 
identity  of  "true"  individual  happiness  with  the  social  happiness 
as  the  condition  of  their  realizing  their  desires  for  happiness.78 
On  this  basis  he  enters  in  conclusion  a  plea  for  a  voluntary 
democracy.79  Thus  Dewey  also  stands  on  practically  the  same 
ground  as  do  Spencer,  Stephen,  and  Meakin,  and  like  them 
diverges  only  formally  from  John  Stuart  Mill. 

V.  Contemporary  with  the  various  writers  mentioned  here 
were  also  a  number  of  other  writers  who  held  to  various  other 

73  Ibid.     See  also  sees.  3  and  4,  this  chapter.  7*  Ibid.,  299. 

™Ibid.,  300.     Is  this  different  from  the  "good  will"  of  Kant? 

78  "To  those  in  whom  it  [the  moral  interest]  is  the  supreme  interest  it 
brings  supreme  or  final  happiness.  It  is  not  preferred  because  it  is  the  greater 
happiness,  but  in  being  preferred  as  expressing  the  only  kind  of  self  which  the 
agent  fundamentally  wishes  himself  to  be,  it  constitutes  a  kind  of  happiness  with 
which  others  cannot  be  compared.  It  is  unique,  final,  invaluable." — Ibid.,  301. 
Also :  "Regard  for  their  final  happiness  (i.e.,  for  a  happiness  whose  quality  is 
such  that  it  cannot  be  externally  added  to  or  subtracted  from)  demands  that 
these  others  shall  find  the  controlling  objects  of  preference,  resolution,  and 
endeavor  in  the  things  that  are  worth  while." — Ibid.}  302-3. 

In  the  first  of  the  above  excerpts,  Dewey  appears  to  be  confused  oetween 
"most"  and  "best",  as  well  as  to  have  given  up  the  individualistic  test  of  prag- 
matism. In  the  second,  he  leaves  us  to  guess  what  are  the  things  "worth  while," 
nor  does  he  tell  us  who  selects  them.  If  the  individual  selects  them,  they  never 
agree  for  different  people,  and  if  some  social  authority  selects  them  the  admission 
of  this  fact  disrupts  his  autonomous  theory  of  ethics  and  of  democracy. 

"Ibid.,  274. 

78  Ibid.,    301-2.      This    second    assumption    is    the    one    which    gave    Spencer, 
Stephen,  and  others  so  much  difficulty. 

79  "There  is  no  way  to  escape  or  evade  this  law  of  happiness,  that  it  resides 
in  the  exercise  of  the  active  capacities  of  a  voluntary  agent ;  and  hence  no  way 
to  escape  or  evade  the  law   of  a  common  happiness,  that  it  must  reside  in  the 
congruous  exercise  of  the  voluntary  activities  of  all  concerned." — Ibid.,  304. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  57 

subject!  vis  tic  criteria  than  that  of  feeling,  though  in  various 
instances  they  accepted  feeling  as  the  force  impelling  to  action.80 
All  of  these  doctrines  are  essentially  intuitionalistic  rather 
than  empirical,  (i)  Perhaps  the  most  generally  accepted  of 
all  of  them  has  been  that  of  reason  as  an  underived  criterion, 
and  to  this  principle  in  some  of  its  forms  Kant,  Green,  Cud- 
worth,  Clark,  Calderwood,81  and  others  were  adherents.  (2) 
Conscience  or  the  innate  moral  sense  was  accepted  as  criterion 
by  such  men  as  Hume,  Hutcheson,  Adam  Smith,  Butler, 
Lecky,  Lotze,  Martineau,  and  Westermarck.82  (3)  Closely 
allied  to  this  is  the  harmony  view  of  S.  H.  Hodgson,83  Fichte, 
and  others.  (4)  A  similar  theory  is  the  self-realisation  doctrine 
of  Paulsen,  Mackenzie,84  Bradley,  W.  G.  Sumner,  and  which  is 
held  to  in  some  form  and  degree  by  a  large  number  of  social 
and  ethical  writers.  (5)  Another  view  which  has  had  some 
acceptance  is  the  "moral  principle  of  maximum  activity"  empha- 
sized by  Simmel,85  Nietzsche,  and  others.  This  view,  which 
makes  mere  action  the  end,  has  had  a  considerable  vogue  in 
recent  polite  literature  especially  of  the  type  of  Browning. 

VI.  It  is  necessary,  finally,  to  relate  the  beginnings  of  func- 
tional sociology  to  the  general  line  of  development  which  has 
been  under  consideration.  Sociology  as  a  theoretical  discipline 
has  so  far  been  largely  classificational,  placing  major  emphasis 

80  Cf.  Wright,  op.  cit.,  43  ff. 

81  "Reason  itself  supplies  the  principles  of  rectitude,  which  cannot  be  reached 
by  induction  from  experience,  as  all  rules  of  expediency  are." — Philos.  Rev.  (July, 
1896),  338. 

82VThat  the  moral  concepts  are  ultimately  based  on  emotions  either  of 
indignation  or  approval,  is  a  fact  which  a  certain  school  of  thinkers  have  in 

vain  attempted  to  deny Men  pronounced  certain  acts  to  be  good  or  bad 

on  account  of  the  emotions  those  acts  [instinctively]  aroused  in  their  minds, 
just  as  they  called  sunshine  warm  or  ice  cold  on  account  of  certain  sensations 
which  they  experienced,  and  as  they  named  a  thing  pleasant  or  painful  because 
they  felt  pleasure  or  pain." — Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Ideas,  I,  4. 

83  "Volitions,   therefore,   when   judged   practically,   are   judged   by   the   antici- 
pated harmony  or  discord  which  they  tend  to   produce   in   the  character  of  the 
agent." — Mctaphysic  of  Experience,  66. 

84  "If   we    have    any    rational   end    at    all    it   must   consist    in    some    kind    ot 
realization  of  our  nature  as  a  whole." — Introd.  to  Social  Philosophy,  255. 

86  Einleitung  in  die  Moralwissenschaft  (Berlin,   1892),  Bd.  I,   S.  388. 


58  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

upon  the  so-called  psychical  "social  forces."  Hobbes,  it  was 
seen,86  had  a  classification  of  the  "appetites"  and  "aversions" 
and  various  supplementary  mental  subdivisions,  which  may  be 
termed  social,  as  well  as  individual,  forces.  Fourier  made  an 
elaborate  though  crude  classification  of  the  passions  or 
"social  forces"  to  which  he  desired  to  give  free  play  in  solving 
the  problems  of  society.87  Spencer  devoted  most  of  his  atten- 
tion to  collecting  and  classifying  real  or  pseudo  facts  about 
primitive  society,  and  very  little  to  a  theory  of  the  application 
of  those  facts  to  present  social  problems.  That  he  was  not 
unmindful  of  the  practical  demand,  however,  is  shown  by  his 
classification  of  the  criteria  for  action  in  Social  Statics,  referred 
to  above.88  His  final  criterion,  however,  reduces  itself  to  happi- 
ness, or  satisfaction  of  the  emotions  or  feelings,  as  end,  in 
which  arrangement  the  intellect  plays  the  role  of  "servant." 

Lester  F.  Ward's  first  book,  Dynamic  Sociology,  was  prac- 
tically an  amplification  of  this  ultimate  criterion  of  Spencer, 
with  a  great  deal  of  emphasis  upon  the  efficiency  of  the  "serv- 
ant." 89  The  views  of  both  Spencer  and  Ward,  as  well  as  of 
other  earlier  writers,  as  to  the  nature  of  the  "social  forces"  or 
conscious  ends  of  social  activity  are  thus  seen  to  be  subjectivistic 
and  individualistic,  quite  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  their 
times  and  of  the  philosophy  from  which  they  learned.  Accord- 
ing to  Ward,  "The  problem  of  social  science  is  to  point  out 
in  what  way  the  most  complete  and  universal  satisfaction  of 
human  desires  can  be  attained,  and  this  is  one  with  the  prob- 

88  Cf.  above,  chap  iii ;  also  Leviathan,  loc.  cit.,  41  ff. 

87  Cf.  chap,  iv,  sec.  n.  •"  Chap,  iv,  sec.  3. 

69  In  this  book  Ward  classifies  the  social  forces  as  follows :  A.  Happiness, 
the  ultimate  end  of  connation ;  B.  Progress ;  C.  Dynamic  Action ;  D.  Dynamic 
Opinion ;  E.  Knowledge ;  F.  Education,  the  initial  means  of  securing  the  ulti- 
mate end.  Cf.  Dynamic  Sociology,  II,  108-9.  In  his  latest  work  he  rearranges 
this  classification  somewhat,  but  the  idea  is  essentially  the  same.  The  later 
classification  is:  I.  Physical  Forces  (function  bodily) — i.  Ontogenetic  Forces — 
(i)  positive,  attractive  (seeking  pleasure);  (2)  negative,  protective  (avoiding 
pain);  2.  Phylogenetic  Forces — (i)  direct,  sexual;  (2)  indirect,  consanguineal. 
II.  Spiritual  Forces  (function  psychic) — i.  Sociogenetic  Forces — (i)  moral 
(seeking  the  safe  and  good)  ;  (2)  aesthetic  (seeking  the  beautiful)  ;  (3)  intel- 
lectual (seeking  the  useful  and  true). — Pure  Sociology,  261. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  59 

lem  of  the  greatest  happiness."  90  He  appraises  happiness  in 
terms  of  the  number  and  rank  of  the  wants  satisfied.  His 
definition  and  placing  of  sociology  show  clearly  his  intellectual 
''inheritance"  from  Comte  and  even  from  Hobbes.91 

Winiarski  has  gone  to  the  metaphysically  ridiculous  in 
attempting  to  establish  an  identity  between  biologic  energy 
and  feeling  consciousness,  thus  reducing  "egoism"  and  "altru- 
ism" to  actual  social  forces,  akin  to  the  physical  forces,  which 
will  enable  us  to  formulate  an  exact  science  of  sociology.92  He 
quotes  liberally  from  English  and  American  and  other  writers 
closely  connected  with  the  movement  outlined  here.93 

Ross,  in  formulating  his  own  classification  of  the  "social 
forces,"94  makes  a  semi-apology  for  differing  somewhat  from 
Ward.95  He,  like  the  other  classificationists  of  this  group,  is 

80  Psychic  Factors  in  Civilisation,  74.  Again:  "The  problem  of  dynamic 
sociology  is  the  organisation  of  happiness." — Dynamic  Sociology,  II,  156. 

w  "Considering  activities  as  motions,  the  forces  producing  those  motions  are 
the  desires,  and  we  have  a  science  which  may  be  called  mental  physics  or 
psychics.  It  constitutes  the  dynamic  department  of  psychology  and  may  also 
be  called  the  dynamics  of  mind 

"i.  The  object  of  Nature  is  Function;  2.  The  object  of  Man  is  Happiness; 
3.  The  object  of  Society  is  Action 

"Treating  human  action  as  social  motion,  the  forces  producing  this  motion 
are  the  desires,  and  we  have  a  science  which  may  be  called  social  physics.  It 
constitutes  the  dynamic  department  of  sociology  or  dynamic  sociology  in  the 
primary  sense  of  that  term,  the  department  which  treats  of  the  social  forces." — 
Psychic  Factors  of  Civilization,  129,  130.  Compare  Hobbes,  op.  cit.,  41  ff.,  and 
Comte,  Positive  Philosophy,  he.  cit.,  Bk.  VI. 

92  "L'egoisme  et  1'altruisme  sont  les  deux  manifestations  elementaires  de 
1'energie  biologique,  comme  1'attraction  et  la  repulsion  le  sont  de  1'energie 

cosmique L'energie  biologique  est  dirigee  dans  chaque  individu  et  dans 

chaque  groupe  d'individus  par  la  tendance  au  maximum  de  plaisir  ou  de  bon- 
heur  possible." — Rev.  philosophique,  XLV,  352-53.  Winiarski,  even  more  than 
Ward,  is  reactionary  and  is  included  here  merely  as  illustrative  of  a  type 
which  tends  to  survive. 

83  His  chief  inspiration  appears  to  have  come  from  Edgeworth's  mathematical 
applications  to  social  subjects.  Cf.  ibid.,  353. 

94  In  outline,  the  classification  is :  I.  Natural  Desires — (o)  appetitive,  (&) 
hedonic,  (c)  egotic,  (d)  affective,  (e)  recreative;  II.  Cultural  Desires — (/)  re- 
ligious, (g)  ethical,  (/t)  aesthetic,  (*')  intellectual.  Cf.  Foundations  of  Sociology, 
169. 

™Ibid.,  167. 


60        AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

convinced  that  "the  cornerstone  of  sociology  must  be  a  sound 
doctrine  of  the  social  forces," 96  which  he,  like  the  others, 
regards  as  essentially  and  ultimately  psychic.97  He  distinguishes 
desires  and  interests  as  referring  to  conscious  or'  individual  and 
to  social  activities  respectively,98  certainly  a  step  in  the  right 
direction.  One  among  the  many  writers  who  do  not  see  this 
difference  is  Stuckenberg,99  whose  classification  of  the  "social 
forces"  does  not  otherwise  differ  greatly  from  that  of  Ross. 

Ratzenhofer  also  has  failed  to  make  this  elementary  dis- 
tinction and  consequently  classifies  the  various  motives  and 
desires  under  terms  which  are  purely  abstractions.100  His 
view  of  the  expansion  of  the  more  general  from  the  more 
special  interests  is  not  unlike  the  metaphysical  derivation  of 
the  later  writer  Winiarski  mentioned  above.101 

In  Small's  classification  of  the  "social  forces"  the  "interests" 
are  also  in  effect  abstractions  or  forms,102  but  beneath  these 
forms  lurk  the  original  "social  forces,"  the  concrete  conscious 
desires  and  impulses.  Even  here,  where  the  form  of  the  clas- 
sification has  a  social  reference,  the  content  is  lodged  in  the 
individual  consciousness  as  the  source  of  activities.103  In  other 
words,  one  of  the  most  objective  of  all  these  classifications  of 

86  Ibid.,  181. 

91  Ibid.,  160-61.  98Ibid.,  168. 

98  Stuckenberg' s  classification  is:  I.  Fundamental,  (i)  economic,  (2)  po- 
litical; II.  Constitutional,  (3)  egotic,  (4)  appetitive,  (5)  affectional,  (6)  recrea- 
tive; III.  Cultural,  (7)  aesthetic,  (8)  ethical,  (9)  religious,  (10)  intellectual.  Cf. 
Sociology,  I,  207. 

100  He  classifies  under  the  term  interests  as   follows:    (i)    race,    (2)    physio- 
logical,  (3)   egotic,   (4)   social,   (5)   transcendental    (Sociologische  Erkentniss,   S. 
54  passim). 

101  Op.  cit.,  Rev  Philosophique,  xlv,  363  ff. 

102  The  terms  in  the  classification  are :  Health,  Wealth,  Sociability,  Knowledge, 
Beauty,  Rightness.    Cf.  General  Sociology,  198.    He  defines  the  interest:    "In  gen- 
eral, an  interest  is  an  unsatisfied  capacity  corresponding  to  an  unrealised  condition, 
and  it  is  predisposition  to  such  rearrangement  as  would  tend  to  realize  the  indi- 
cated condition Human   interests,   then,   are   the   ultimate  terms   of   calcu- 
lation   in    sociology.      The   whole    life-process,   so    far   as   we   know   it,   whether 
viewed  in  its  individual  or  in  its  social  phase,  is  at  last  the  process  of  developing, 
adjusting,  and  satisfying  interests." — Ibid.,  433-34. 

103 ".  .  .  .  These  interests  ....  are  the  motors  of  all  individual  and  social 
action." — Ibid.,  435. 


THEORIES   OF  THE  END   OF  ACTIVITY  6 1 

the  "social  forces"  does  not  get  away  from  final  subjectivistic 
reference.  Like  the  others,  it  is  finally  subjectivistic  and  indi- 
vidualistic.104 "In  the  beginning/'  he  says,  "were  interests,"  105 
implying  that  these  internal  impulses  and  desires  are  the  funda- 
mental and  original  facts  in  social  life.  Almost  immediately, 
however,  he  introduces  the  factors  of  physical  and  social  environ- 
ment into  the  situation  and  mentions  them  in  advance  of  the 
interests;106  and  a  little  farther  on  he  appears  to  forget  the 
matter  of  subjective  social  forces  altogether  in  urging  a  concrete 
analysis  and  classification  of  the  whole  social  process.107  The 
explanation  is,  of  course,  that  he  is  divided  between  two  systems 
or  methods  of  sociology,  the  logical  subjectivistic-individualistic, 
coming  over  from  his  contact  with  the  earlier  social  and  ethical 
theorists  like  Mill,  Green,  Spencer,  and  Ward,  and  an  objective 
method  derived  from  his  actual  observation  of  and  participation 
in  the  social  process.  The  problem  of  harmonizing  the  two 
methods  does  not  present  itself  as  urgent,  for  it  has  been  the 
custom  of  the  subjective  classificationists,  their  classifications 
once  achieved  and  proven  logically  satisfactory,  to  pigeon-hole 
them  and  to  appeal  to  objective  common-sense  methods  when 
they  had  really  practical  work  to  do.108 

It  is  perhaps  significant  that  an  economist  of  great  reputa- 

101  In  a  public  lecture  before  the  University  of  Chicago,  May  13,  1910,  Pro- 
fessor Small  declared  that  "human  valuations  are  the  efficient  social  forces." 
He  further  stated  that  the  valuations  of  men  are  to  be  compared  with  gravity 
in  the  physical  world,  though  they  cannot  be  measured  as  accurately  as  the 
latter,  because  they  shift  centers. 

105  General  Sociology,  196. 

108  "All  men,  however,  from  the  most  savage  to  the  most  highly  civilized,  act 
as  they  do  act,  first,  because  of  variations  in  the  circumstances  of  their  environ- 
ment, both  physical  and  social ;  second,  because  of  variations  and  permutations  of 
their  six  elementary  interests." — Ibid.,  197-98. 

lor  "positive  knowledge  of  the  social  process  must  depend  upon  the  use  of 
methods  which  avoid  both  of  these  vices  [limited  induction  and  the  a  priori 
method].  It  is  necessary,  on  the  one  hand,  to  analyze  concrete  conditions.  It  is 
necessary,  on  the  other  hand,  t.o  interpret  each  and  every  concrete  condition  by 
locating  it  perfectly  in  the  whole  social  process." — Ibid.,  226. 

108  De  Greef  also  has  a  classification  of  social  elements  or  forces  (cf .  Intro- 
duction a  la  Sociologie,  II,  15),  a  classification,  though  based  upon  an  abstrac- 
tion, which  avoids  some  of  the  worst  errors  of  subjectivism. 


62  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

tion,  who  welcomes  the  psychological  method  for  economics10£ 
and  whose  intellectual  connections  with  the  modern  development 
of  the  demand  for  democratic  satisfaction  is  well  known,11( 
should  also  put  forth  a  "theory  of  motivation"  or  classification 
of  the  subjective  "social  forces"  as  the  prime  movers  to  action.111 
It  is  perhaps  not  less  significant  that  he  further  concludes  that 
the  egoistic  forces  or  motives  can  operate  legitimately  only  when 
modified,  suffused,  and  controlled  by  the  ethical  or  non-egoistic 
motive,112  which  of  course  is  nothing  more  than  social  control 
in  some  form  or  other.  In  this  view  Wagner  does  not  differ 
essentially  from  Mill  and  the  various  other  socio-ethical  writers 
who  took  their  cue  from  Mill  and  his  contemporaries.113 

McDougall  has  professedly  abandoned  the  metaphysical  and 
logical  methods  of  formulating  a  classification  of  the  "social 
forces,"114  and  has  constructed  a  theory  of  instincts  and  corre- 
sponding emotions  with  derivative  sentiments  to  serve  as  the 
natural  or  genetic  basis  of  a  social  theory  or  social  psychology.115 
No  other  problem,  except  that  of  actually  analyzing  all  the  fac- 
tors in  the  social  situation,  is  of  equal  importance  with  deter- 
mining the  original  equipment  of  social  or  human  beings.  But 
that  McDougall  has  failed  in  doing  this,  that  he  has  made  his 
instincts  predominantly  out  of  acquired  activities,  can  scarcely 
be  denied;  so  that  practically  his  classification  is  scarcely  an 

109  Wagner,  Grundlegung  der  politischen  Oekonomie,  3  Aufl.,  I  Bd.,  S.  15. 

110  Ibid.,  S.  38  ff.     Also,  Rede  iiber  die  sociale  Frage. 

id.t  87. 
.,  119. 

113  For  a  characterization  of  the  hedonistic  economists  see  Gide  et  Rist, 
Historic  des  doctrines  economiques  depuis  les  Physiocrats  jusqu'e  nos  jours, 
592  ff.  Of  a  similar  type  of  thinking,  in  general,  is  Giddings'  fourfold  classifi- 
cation of  the  subjective  elements  of  goodness  as  criteria  for  conduct  of  life. 
He  says,  "The  ideal  good  is  the  rational  happiness  that  is  compounded  of  virtue 
and  pleasure,  of  integrity  and  the  continuing  expansion  of  life  [self-realization]." 
— Principles  of  Sociology,  407.  Also  S.  N.  Patten's  theory  of  the  evolution  from 
a  pain  economy  to  a  pleasure  economy  belongs  to  the  same  general  type  of 
theory.  Cf.  Theory  of  Social  Forces. 

m  Introd.  to  Social  Psychology,  15. 

115  A  less  complete  classification  of  this  type  was  put  forth  by  H.  R.  Marshall 
in  1894.  Cf.  Pleasure,  Pain,  and  Aesthetics,  chap.  ii. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY  63 

advance  upon  the  older  subjectivistic  logical  classifications.  All 
alike  are  subjectivistic,  stopping  with  consciousness,  real  or 
imaginary,  and  covering  up  the  real  and  objective  sources  of 
stimulation  to  activity.116 

Thus  has  been  traced  in  outline  in  this  chapter  the  develop- 
ment of  social  and  ethical  theory  from  Hobbes  to  the  present 
time.  Hobbes  started  the  discussion  both  as  to  the  origins  of 
activity  and  as  to  the  basis  of  the  control  of  that  activity,  in 
the  individual  and  the  group.  It  appears  that  the  answer  to  the 
former  question  has  not  greatly  varied  in  the  dominant  line  of 
theory  to  the  present  day,  though  recently  there  is  a  sign  of 
change  consequent  upon  a  better  analysis  of  nervous  activity 
and  conscious  processes.  The  latter  problem  was  treated  and 
answered  in  various  ways  by  such  writers  as  Locke,  Rousseau, 
and  others  mentioned  above.  Through  Rousseau  the  theory  of 
authority  or  control  went  over  into  three  related  schools,  that 
of  the  radical  democracy,  the  modern  individualistic  socialism, 
and  philosophic  anarchism.  The  straight  line  of  development  of 
this  idea,  however,  was  rather  through  Locke,  Hume,  and 
Bentham  and  the  latter's  school  of  jurists,  as  was  detailed  above, 
with  a  measure  of  influence,  however,  from  the  various  other 
schools,  as  for  instance  in  the  case  of  eighteenth-century  French 
influence  upon  Mill.  This  has  been  the  most  effective  and 
practical  line  of  development,  and  hence  the  one  to  engage  our 
attention  here.  This  line  of  theory,  like  the  others,  has  been 
uniformly  subjectivistic.  Until  recently  it  was  hedonistic,  even 
among  our  earlier  functional  sociologists,  such  as  Spencer  and 
Ward.  But  even  with  Spencer  and  Ward  there  is  a  perceptible 
movement  away  from  the  old  hedonistic  criteria.117  Their  sub- 
sidiary classifications,  or  the  addition  of  other  elements  as  second- 
ary to  the  plainly  hedonic,  were  beginnings  of  a  movement  away 
from  both  the  hedonic  and  the  otherwise  subjectivistic  criteria. 

118  Cf.  also  Williams,  "Outline  of  a  Theory  of  Social  Motives,"  Amer. 
Jour,  of  Sociology,  XV,  741. 

117  Ward  is,  in  a  sense,  a  reactionary  in  that  (as  pointed  out  above)  he 
developed  to  its  limits  Spencer's  hedonistic  criterion.  But  his  emphasis  upon 
the  social  value  of  knowledge  entitles  him  to  a  place  in  the  transition. 


64  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

It  was  the  admission  of  other  social  forces  into  the  classifications 
which  had  begun  to  appear  with  a  further  analysis  of  social 
life.  Ross  discounts  the  hedonic  element  and  Small  drops  it 
entirely  in  his  non-hierarchical  classification,  and  the  content 
becomes  predominantly  objective.  But  the  application  which 
they  demand  for  these  classifications  is  still  primarily  subjec- 
tivistic.  It  has  been  difficult  in  the  early  stages  of  a  social 
science  to  depart  from  the  models  of  the  old  subjectivistic  and 
individualistic  philosophy. 

However,  the  old  philosophy  will  not  suffice  for  the  founda- 
tions of  a  new  functional  sociology.  Consequently  the  answers 
to  Hobbes's  two  questions  must  be  in  other  terms.  ^Ve  can  no 
longer  attribute  the  cause  of  the  act  or  intrust  the  regulation  of 
social  control  to  the  individual's  consciousness  primarily,  but  we 
must  trace  both  back  finally  to  the  social  and  physical  environ- 
ment. To  develop  this  point  more  fully  will  be  the  purpose  of 
the  next  chapter. 


V.     THEORIES  OF  THE  END  OF  ACTIVITY- 
CRITICISM 

(l)     CRITICISM     OF    THE    VIEWS    DISCUSSED    IN     THE    PREVIOUS 

CHAPTER. (2)      CHIEF     OBJECTIONS     TO     THE     HAPPINESS 

CRITERION. (3)    ERROR  OF  THE  CLASSIFICATIONISTS 

In  the  previous  chapter  the  line  of  development  in  social  and 
ethical  theory  was  sketched  briefly  and  the  close  connection 
between  modern  neo-utilitarian  ethics  and  the  rising  functional 
sociology  was  pointed  out.  It  was  found  that,  while  latterly 
the  trend  has  been  away  from  the  hedonistic  criterion  of  happi- 
ness, the  criterion  of  the  end  of  action  with  these  theorists  is 
still  a  subjective  one,  i.e.,  it  makes  the  individual  and  his 
mental  processes,  his  individual  choice,  the  determinant  of  what 
his  conduct  shall  be  in  a  social  world.  The  purpose  of  the 
present  chapter  is  (i)  to  criticize  briefly  the  various  views 
discussed  in  some  detail  in  the  previous  chapter,  (2)  to  sum- 
marize the  chief  and  most  weighty  objections  to  the  happiness 
criterion,  and  (3)  to  indicate  the  essential  error  of  the  sub- 
jectivistic  classifications  which  play  so  large  a  part  in  the  theory 
of  modern  sociology. 

I.  Morris  and  Nietzsche  were  taken  as  types  of  the  branch 
of  social  theory  which  subjects  all  forms  of  social  control  to 
the  test  of  individual  gratification,  the  latter  as  representative  of 
the  anarchistic  view  of  the  naturalness  of  society,  formulated 
most  effectively  in  modern  times  by  Rousseau,  and  the  former 
as  representative  of  the  more  individualistic  and  dominant 
socialism,  also  largely  traceable  to  the  pronouncements  of  Rous- 
seau. Whether  happiness  could  be  realized  in  the  absence  of 
control,  as  they  assume  it  could,  is  not  a  primary  question  here. 
It  is  the  task  of  this  study  to  point  out  the  anti-social  implica- 
tions of  the  happiness  criterion  of  activity  or  conduct.  Both 
the  men  mentioned  here  conceive  of  social  control  as  incom- 
patible with  happiness,  and  happiness  is  their  end.  Morris' 

65 


66  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

assumption  that  remorse  will  of  itself  take  care  of  transgres- 
sion [of  the  happiness  of  others?]  is  naive  and  is  contradicted 
both  by  psychological  analysis  of  the  human  instinctive  and 
emotional  equipment  and  by  all  our  knowledge  of  ordinary 
life.  Remorse  is  itself  the  creature  of  social  control.  Equally 
unjustified  is  his  assumption  that  people  naturally  like  to  work, 
at  least  at  things  of  social  value.1  His  idea  of  education  is 
likewise  esoteric  and  unpractical,  as  was  his  theory  of  industry 
as  a  whole.  Nietzsche  also  lacks  a  practical  and  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  original  or  innate  equipment  of  individuals, 
as  is  shown  in  particular  by  his  use  of  the  term  "instinct," 
which  he  applies  to  practically  any  habitual  tendency  to  activity. 
His  account  of  reactive  movements  is  metaphysical  and  untrue 
to  fact  in  the  extreme.2  The  evolutionary  value  of  morality  is 
entirely  lost  to  him.3 

The  same  lack  of  information  regarding  matters  of  human 
nature  and  social  facts  comes  out  also  in  connection  with  the 
happiness  criterion  and  the  nonsensical  "analyse  de  1'attraction 
passionee"  of  Fourier.4 

xThe  so-called  "instinct  of  workmanship"  (cf.  Veblen,  "The  Instinct  of 
Workmanship  and  the  Irksomeness  of  Labor,"  Amer.  Jour,  of  Sociology,  IV,  187), 
which  some  of  our  pseudo-sociological  writers  have  made  so  much  of,  merely 
represents  a  tendency  of  the  organism  to  be  active.  It  guarantees  nothing  as  to 
the  object  or  objects  of  that  activity.  Prize-fighting,  professional  gambling, 
tramping  are,  from  an  individualistic  standpoint,  as  effective  methods  of  corre- 
lating these  tendencies  to  activity  as  any  other.  To  get  useful  social  results 
there  must  be  social  control,  and  often  coercive  control,  certainly  resulting  in 
different  activity  effects  from  those  Morris  considered  valuable. 

a  He  characterizes  the  contradiction  between  the  psychological  and  his  own 
interpretations  as  follows:  ".  .  .  .  The  difference  is  fundamental:  in  the  one 
case  [that  of  the  view  attributed  to  the  psychologists]  the  guarding  against 
further  injury  is  intended ;  in  the  other  [his]  the  object  is  to  narcotise  some 
torturing,  secret  pain  which  grows  intolerable,  by  means  of  a  violent  emotion  of 
any  kind,  and  to  remove  it,  for  the  moment  at  least,  from  consciousness." — 
Genealogy  of  Morals,  176.  Compare  Ward,  Psychic  Factors  of  Civilisation,  55. 
This  view  is  hopelessly  sophisticated  and  intellectualistic  and  even  the  view 
which  he  attributes  to  the  psychologists  is  more  intellectualistic  than  the  logical 
psychologists  themselves  hold. 

3  He  received  his  training  in  classical  archaeology  and  the  classical  languages 
and  was  accordingly  a  litterateur,  very  much  as  was  Rousseau. 

*  Cf.  Nouveau  monde  industriel  et  societaire,  47  ff.  A  typical  statement  of  his 
is:  "L'etat  societaire,  en  donnant  a  chaque  le  plus  vaste  develloppement, 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  67 

Bentham,  on  the  other  hand,  had  a  practical  and  relatively 
social  end.5  He  hoped  to  secure  democratic  satisfaction,  i.e., 
the  greatest  happiness  for  the  greatest  number,  and  he  assumed 
that  individual  happiness,  which  he  regarded  as  identical  with 
pleasure,  is  also  social  happiness.  In  other  words,  he  could  con- 
ceive of  no  social  end  as  apart  from  the  happiness  or  pleasure 
of  individuals.  He  avoided  the  problem  of  the  individual  and 
social  detriment  of  some  pleasures  by  assuming  a  highly 
sophisticated  calculation  of  present  and  future  values  or  utili- 
ties of  pleasures  (all  of  which  he  regarded  as  being  of  the 
same  quality)  quite  regardless  of  the  unconscious  nature  of 
most  of  our  activity,6  and  of  the  fact  that  retribution  does  not 
always  fall  logically  upon  the  delinquent,  and  further  that  the 
chief  factor  in  playing  the  game  of  getting  the  maximum 
pleasure  is  one  of  shifting  upon  others  the  consequences  of 
destructive  activity. 

Mill's  introduction  of  the  idea  of  quality  in  feeling  or  hap- 
piness and  his  substitution  of  the  happiness  of  society  for  that 
of  the  individual  as  the  ultimate  criterion,  have  been  generally 
admitted  to  be  a  practical  negation  of  the  happiness  standard;7 
because  the  measure  of  quality  is  ultimately  social  and  objec- 
tive, and  a  distinction  between  the  happiness  of  the  individual 
and  that  of  society  has  meaning  only  when  it  is  recognized  that 
there  is  an  antithesis  between  individual  gratification  and  social 
life.  The  introduction  of  a  social  "instinct,"  or  of  acquired 
social  feeling,  to  remove  the  contradiction  between  individual 
and  social  happiness  is  in  itself  an  admission  of  the  primary 
efficiency  of  social  control  over  individual  preference  in  deter- 
mining activity  or  conduct. 

The  same  fundamental  criticism  may  be  made  of  Spencer 

I'essor  en  tous  degres  est  assure  d'en  voir  naitre  des  gages  de  concorde  generate, 
et  des  ralliements  entre  les  classes  les  plus  antipathiques,  riches  et  pauvres, 
testateurs  et  heritiers,"  etc. — Ibid.,  333. 

5  Cf.  introductory  chapter. 

*  Cf .  reference  to  Thorndike,  chap,  iii,  note  10,  above. 

'Mackenzie,  Manual  of  Ethics,  227;  Sidgwick,  Methods  of  Ethics,  p.  89; 
Green,  op.  cit.,  168  ff. ;  Martineau,  op.  cit.,  II,  no;  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies, 
106  ff. ;  Rashdall,  op.  cit.,  I,  36;  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  279-80. 


68       AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

and  of  the  other  neo-utilitarians  whose  views  were  analyzed 
from  this  standpoint  in  section  iv  of  the  previous  chapter. 
Their  views  differ  essentially  only  in  the  form  of  statement, 
which  has  been  growing  less  logical  and  more  evolutionary. 
Spencer  assumes  the  biological  and  racial  identity  of  the  pleasur- 
able and  the  useful,  of  the  unpleasant  and  the  harmful,  an 
assumption  which  a  slight  experience  in  life  negates,  both  in  its 
application  to  the  individual  and  to  the  race.8  Dewey  makes  a 
distinction  between  pleasure  and  happiness,  which  is  unjustified 
both  by  common  usage  and  by  his  own  treatment.  He  also 
admits  that  the  "greater"  happiness  will  not  follow  from  moral 
(social)  activity,  but  claims  that  happiness  from  such  a  source 
is  the  best.9  He  does  not  answer  the  question,  "Whose  best?" 
which  would  get  him  into  difficulty.  That  it  is  not  the  indi- 
vidual's best  is  evidenced,  first,  by  the  fact  that  it  is  chosen  as 
a  result  of  some  degree  of  social  coercion  or  control,  as  a  means 
to  adjustment  to  a  situation,  and,  second,  that  it  is  not  the 
"greater  happiness."  The  admission  that  it  is  society's  best 
would  be  the  same  old  implied  confession  that  social  good  or 
survival  and  not  individual  happiness  is  the  ultimate  working 
criterion.  The  assumption  by  Dewey  and  others  that  the  happi- 
ness of  the  individual  is  identical  with  that  of  the  group,  when 
the  end  of  action  is  a  social  one,  is  based  upon  two  other  assump- 
tions, ( i )  that  the  democratically  free  individual 10  can  know 
all  the  social  values  and  uses  of  an  activity,  and  (2)  that  if  he 
did  know  all  the  social  values  and  uses  he  would  frequently 
choose  to  his  own  disadvantage  (from  the  standpoint  of  feel- 
ing), since  we  cannot  truthfully  assume  that  the  world  is  a 
perfect  harmony  of  forces  and  interests,  i.e.,  that  there  is  no 
necessity  for  individual  adjustment.11  The  former  assumption 
is  an  impossibility;  the  other  an  improbability.  Only  a  social 
organization  in  some  degree  compulsory  has  ever  assured  social 
welfare  and  survival,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  any  other  can. 

8  Cf.  Sidgwick,  Ethics  of  Green,  Spencer,  and  Martineau,  162  ff . ;  Marshall, 
op.  cit.,  352. 

9Cf.  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  301.  10Cf.  ibid.,  301,  303-4. 

11  Cf.  Lecky,  op.  cit.,  61 ;  Stephen,  op.  cit.,  433. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END  OF  ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  69 

This  same  fundamental  confusion,  it  was  seen,  went  over 
also  into  the  theories  of  the  early  sociologists  like  Spencer, 
Ward,  and  their  followers. 

The  secondary  group  of  writers  mentioned  in  section  v  of 
the  preceding  chapter  were  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  illus- 
trating the  contention  that  the  subjectivistic  criterion  is  not 
alone  limited  to  the  setting-up  of  happiness  as  the  end  of  activity. 
When  such  criteria  as  reason,  conscience,  harmony,  self-realiza- 
tion, or  maximum  activity  are  used,  in  actual  practice  or  living 
the  individual  must  go  back  of  these  criteria  and  find  some  more 
ultimate  criterion,  in  self -gratification  or  pleasure,  conformity 
to  custom,  the  will  of  the  deity,  political  authority,  public 
opinion,  or  finally  the  most  complete  scientific  knowledge  of 
social  phenomena  or  processes  possible.  It  may  be  a  mixture  of 
all  these;  but  there  is  no  assurance  that  it  will  not  be  the  first, 
i.e.,  the  individual's  pleasure.  When  it  becomes  the  last — as  it 
rarely,  if  ever,  does — it  ceases  to  be  individualistic  and  becomes 
constructively  social.  Among  the  non-hedonistic  writers  men- 
tioned above,  however,  it  was  and  could  be  only  individualistic, 
because  they  had  neither  the  conception  of  an  objective  social 
analysis  for  purposes  of  control,  nor  did  they  have  the  means 
for  making  such  an  analysis  and  for  formulating  a  system  of 
social  control  on  such  a  basis.  Thus  subjectivism  in  any  form, 
as  a  criterion,  depends  upon  a  failure  to  comprehend  the  organ- 
izing, compelling,  and  final  nature  of  the  life  of  the  social 
process  or  organism — the  continued  and  compulsory  existence 
of  the  group  as  a  social  unity.  This  failure  was  also  found  to 
exist  in  large  measure,  at  least  on  the  side  of  theory,  among 
the  sociologists.  The  reason  for  this  will  be  discussed  more 
fully  in  section  iii  of  this  chapter  and  in  the  following  chapter. 

II.  The  main  reasons  why  happiness  or  pleasure  cannot  be 
considered  the  legitimate  or  efficient  end  of  activity,  either  by 
the  individual  or  by  groups  of  individuals,  may  be  summarized 
as  follows: 

Many  sources  of  individual  and  social  pleasure  are  abnormal, 
i.e.,  hurtful  individually  and  socially.  The  drink  habit,  prosti- 
tution, the  "fashions"  are  striking  examples  of  such  hurtful 


70  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

pleasures.  Any  kind  of  an  activity,  regardless  of  its  social  or 
individual  values,  may  become  pleasurable.12  In  some  types  of 
sexual  perversion  murder  is  essential  to  the  completest  indi- 
vidual satisfaction.13 

All  candid  utilitarians  and  neo-utilitarians  have  fallen  back 
upon  the  social  or  moral  as  the  ultimate  guide  in  life  and 
society,14  and  have  failed  to  bridge  satisfactorily  the  chasm 
between  the  two  criteria  of  pleasure  or  happiness  and  the  socially 
useful  or  moral. 

The  instincts  are  not  social.  There  is  no  "social  instinct." 
Instincts  are  inherited  reactions,  i.e.,  inherited  neural  connec- 
tions in  the  lower  or  subcortical  parts  of  the  nervous  system,15 
which  serve  to  adjust  the  individual  to  the  most  elementary 
situations  in  his  environment.  Anything  so  complex  as  a  con- 
scious social  adjustment  must  be  brought  about  by  a  learned 
reaction.  Hence  "instinct"  cannot  be  used  to  reconcile  the  dis- 
agreement between  the  happiness  and  the  social-morality  criteria. 

Sympathy  is  instinctive  only  in  the  sense  that  imitation  is 
instinctive — that  there  are  tendencies  in  all  individuals  with  a 
uniform  or  similar  neural  equipment  to  react  to  the  same  things 
in  much  the  same  way,  whether  the  stimulus  is  received  simul- 
taneously from  an  object  equally  disconnected  from  two  or  more 
persons  or  is  received  in  series,  i.e.,  is  received  by  one  through 
another.  Such  "sympathetic"  or  "imitative"  reactions  may  also 
be  acquired  as  habits.  But  the  "sympathy"  which  takes  care  of 
a  new  social  situation  is  a  matter  of  reflection.16  Likewise  the 
concept  "instinctive  sympathy"  is  inadequate  to  reconcile  the 
disagreement  between  these  conflicting  criteria. 

The  argument  that  the  happiness  criterion  is  efficient  if  we 
consider  sufficiently  the  consequences  of  our  choices  (granting 
that  such  consideration  is  possible)  breaks  down  because  acts 

12  Cf.  chap.  ii. 

18  Cf.  Krafft-Ebing,  Psychopathia  Sexualis  (English  transl.,  New  York,  1906), 
526-7. 

14  Cf .  chap,  iv,  sees,  iii  and  iv. 

15  Cf.  Herrick  (Science,  XXXI,  10)  on  the  plasticity  of  the  cortical  processes. 

16  Cf.  chap.  iii. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  71 

are  not  logically  retributive  and  because  no  one  lives  long 
enough  to  reap  all  the  consequences  of  his  acts.  In  a  static 
society  in  which  all  the  members  were  "charter"  members  with 
an  infinite  lease  of  life  and  infinite  knowledge,  the  retributive 
test  might  be  efficient. 

Nor  can  we  make  the  qualitative  distinction  effective  as  a 
guide,  because  the  "more  useful  acts"  or  "better"  happiness,  indi- 
vidually and  socially  considered,  are  so  because  the  present  or 
contrasted  activity,  though  not  necessarily  unpleasant,  is  out  of 
social  adjustment.  Readjustment  means  the  breaking-down  of 
neural  co-ordinations  or  internal  adjustments  and  hence  is  an 
unpleasant  process.17  All  progress,  individual  and  social,  in- 
volves more  or  less  immediate  suffering  to  those  concerned. 
The  happy  individuals  and  the  happy  groups  are,  to  use  an  old 
saw,  those  whose  annals  are  brief. 

But  even  in  a  hypothetically  static  group  the  individual  could 
not  unreservedly  follow  the  dictates  of  happiness  or  pleasure. 
Education,  if  it  trains  in  actual  and  functional  social  adjust- 
ments, necessarily  involves  unpleasant  internal  adjustments  and 
habit  acquirements.18  There  are  those  who  claim  the  contrary 
but  they  have  not  made  good  their  claim. 

The  same  objection  holds  against  the  view  that  happiness  or 
pleasure  can  guide  one  to  socially  effective  functioning  in  a 
democracy.  There  is  everywhere  an  objective  social  world  to 
which  adjustments  (often  unpleasant  personally)  must  be  made. 
Adjustment  to  physical  and  vital  conditions  is  the  first 
necessity  of  social  as  well  as  of  individual  life.  Mental  states 
or  conscious  processes  come  in  only  as  a  means  to  these  adjust- 
ments, either  directly  or  remotely.  If  the  conscious  processes 
are  made  ends  in  themselves  and  consequently  become  opposed 
to  individual  and  social  survival-adjustments,  the  end  becomes 
abnormal.19 

Society  as  it  now  exists,  and  as  it  must  always  exist  if  it 
remains  cultural,  is  largely  based  upon  the  self-sacrifice  of  the 
individuals  to  the  future.  Society  is  made  possible  by  an  accu- 

17 Cf.  chap.  ii.  18Cf.  chap.  in.  "Ibid. 


72        AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

mulation  of  unconsumed  utilities,  and  any  individual  who  would 
consume  all  the  resources  available  without  replacing  them  in 
equal  or  greater  amounts  is  regarded  with  disapprobation  and 
considered  a  parasite  or  criminal. 

The  fact  that  feeling  is  relative  to  its  object  led  Spencer 
to  believe  that  "instinctive"  and  acquired  sympathy  could  be 
made  pleasurable,  and  hence  that  pleasure  could  be  made  an 
efficient  guide  to  action.  But  social  sympathy  is  only  a  method, 
and  hence  involves  internal  disruptions  and  readjustments  for 
the  sake  of  external  adjustments,  and  when  effective,  i.e.,  when 
it  leads  to  control  of  the  situation  in  the  interest  of  another,— 
when  it  is  not  wholly  subjective,  and  thus  merely  the  feeling  ac- 
companiment of  a  realized  or  potential  reaction  similar  to  that  of 
the  fellow  socius  stimulated  as  pointed  out  above — it  is  likely  to 
result  in  the  more  unpleasantness  and  inconvenience  the  more 
experienced. 

It  may  be  urged  that  in  an  ultimate  perfect  state  of  society 
there  will  not  have  to  be  unpleasant  adjustments,  and  that  the 
pleasant  and  the  socially  useful  activities  tend  to  merge.20  But 
this  is  presupposing  an  ultimate  statical  condition  which  the 
facts  of  individual  and  social  life  do  not  justify  us  in  assuming. 
Life  must  always  be  a  continual  adjustment,  though  the  more 
we  secure  a  scientific  control  of  the  physical  and  social  environ- 
ment the  less  radical  and  unpleasant  adjustments  are  likely  to  be. 

III.  When  it  is  remembered  how  ideas  grow  up,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  first  attempts  at  a  functional  sociology— 
a  sociology  beginning  to  deal  with  the  concrete  problems  of 
social  control  or  social  functioning — should  still  follow  after 
the  old  subjectivistic — both  democratic  hedonistic  and  ethical 
individualistic — writers  on  psychology  and  ethics,  and  thus 
should  be  in  large  measure  classificational  rather  than  actually 
functional.  When  Fourier  made  his  famous  and  absurd  classi- 
fication he  suffered  from  an  almost  total  poverty  of  actual  social 
facts.  It  was  not  till  after  Spencer  and  the  ethnologists,  the 
practical  social  workers,  statisticians,  etc.,  had  got  together  a 

20  Cf.  Meakin,  op.  cit.,  chap,  xxvii. 


THEORIES   OF  THE  END  OF  ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  73 

large  mass  of  data  that  anything  but  an  a  priori  sociology  was 
possible.  But  the  mere  presence  of  facts  does  not  solve  a  prob- 
lem. The  problem  must  be  stated  and  the  facts  bearing  on  it 
must  be  focused.  The  very  fact  that  the  mind  attacks  a  problem 
means,  usually,  that  an  adjustment  to  the  situation  is  being  made 
in  a  round-about  way.  Only  familiarity  with  a  situation  makes 
direct  action  possible.  The  early  sociologists  neither  understood 
their  problem  clearly,  nor,  as  a  consequence,  were  they  able  to 
relate  their  facts  correctly.  As  a  result  they  sought  a  method— 
a  method  which  would  at  once  state  their  problem  and  solve  it. 
Influenced  by  tradition  and  by  their  own  training,  they  began 
by  culling  from  the  a  priori  and  subjectivistic  conclusions  of 
the  previous  psychological  and  ethical  writers,  and  these  cullings 
they  made  into  classifications  of  the  so-called  "social  forces," 
with  which  they  believed  themselves  able  to  explain  all  social 
phenomena.  The  origin  and  types  of  these  classifications  were 
illustrated  in  the  preceding  chapter.21 

The  constant  aim  of  the  most  accurate,  complete,  and  objec- 
tive classifications  of  the  "social  forces" — and  few  classifications 
have  been  any  of  these  adequately  so  far — is  to  point  out:  (i) 
how  the  individual  acts  or  behaves,  the  organs  he  uses  and  how 
he  uses  them  when  stimulated  in  known  or  unknown  ways,  and 
(2)  how  a  group  acts  or  behaves,  the  types  of  control  which 
are  exercised  over  individual  activities  or  behaviors,  in  known 
or  unknown  ways.  In  the  individual  these  may  be  instinctive 
or  acquired  (habitual)  behaviors;  in  the  group  they  may  have 
grown  up  unconsciously  through  custom,  or  they  may  have  been 
consciously  legislated  into  existence,  or  taken  on  through  pres- 
sure of  public  opinion,  or  as  a  result  of  scientific  investigation. 

Those  of  the  former  type  have  been  called  "social  forces" 
and  traced  back  to  the  individual  consciousness  and  lodged  there 

21  There  were,  of  course,  some  early  attempts  at  explaining  social  phenomena 
on  a  more  or  less  objective  basis,  made  by  such  men  as  Buckle  and  other 
anthropogeographers  and  "economic"  interpretationists.  But  their  interpreta- 
tions broke  down  because  of  insufficient  data  as  well  as  because  of  the  unwar- 
ranted assumption  of  certain  impossible  mental  or  subjective  consequences  fol- 
lowing from  environmental  influences. 


74  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

by  the  subjectivistic  classificationists,  because  the  individual  is 
usually  conscious  of  his  socially  most  conspicuous  acts,  and 
when  he  is  not  thus  conscious,  consciousness  is  logically  inferred 
or  assumed.22  Thus  a  crude  sociology  stops  at  the  sacred  pre- 
cincts of  consciousness,  and  there  in  the  forms  of  consciousness 
ends  its  search  for  the  "social  forces."  It  is  only  recently  that 
we  have  come  to  think  of  consciousness  as  other  than  ultimate, 
as  caused  and  as  merely  a  factor  in  adjustment. 

With  the  same  subjective  emphasis  and  understanding,  the 
social  behaviors  have  also  by  analogy  been  called  "social  forces," 
when  they  were  abstracted  from  the  homogeneous  social  situa- 
tion and  were  observed  to  be  carried  on  through  or  by  indi- 
viduals. The  distinction  here  was  not  at  first  clear,  as  appeared 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  where  "desires"  and  "interests"  were 
seen  to  be  constantly  confused  in  the  classifications.  Mere 
forms  of  activity  though  they  are,  there  is  more  reason  for 
terming  the  latter  type  of  behaviors  "social  forces"  than  the 
former,  because  they  inevitably  go  behind  the  individual  con- 
sciousness to  some  extent  and  at  least  co-ordinate  loosely  the 
most  general  types  of  social  processes  or  activities. 

The  most  accurate  possible  classifications  of  the  kinds 
instanced  in  the  preceding  chapter,  if  assumed  to  be  essential 
at  all,  mark  only  the  most  elementary  stage  in  the  analysis  of 
social  phenomena,  in  the  statement  and  solution  of  social  prob- 
lems. Our  social  sciences,  as  distinct  from  pure  technologies, 
have  so  far,  however,  dealt  chiefly  with  such  classifications. 
For  a  long  time  economics  was  practically  a  logic  of  the  hypo- 
thetical interplay  of  whatever  subjective  "forces"  the  theorist 
might  feel  himself  inclined  or  compelled  to  recognize.  Though 
German  economists  of  the  practical  school  have  in  large  degree 
rescued  this  science  from  its  former  subjectivistic  trend,  Eng- 
lish and  American  economic  writers  are  as  yet  by  no  means 
convinced.  To  show  that  sociology  and  ethics  have  been  and 

22  This  assumption  of  the  conscious  nature  of  all  activities  is  necessary  to 
any  doctrine  of  thoroughgoing  hedonism  or  subjectivism,  as  has  been  indicated 
earlier  in  this  study. 


THEORIES   OF   THE   END   OF   ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  75 

are  handicapped  in  a  similar  manner  was  the  primary  purpose 
of  the  preceding  chapter. 

As  we  pass  from  an  introspective  to  an  experimental  and 
biological  psychology,  and  thus  come  to  analyze  the  conditions 
of  consciousness  and  to  see  how  it  functions  in  mediating 
adjustments  to  our  social  and  physical  environments,  we  go 
back  of  the  mere  forms  of  consciousness  in  our  study  of  social 
causation  and  control.  Under  such  conditions,  our  search  for 
"social  forces"  undertakes  to  account  objectively  for  the  func- 
tioning processes,  (i)  of  the  individual  and  (2)  of  the  group. 
In  social  practice  we  entered  this  stage  when  we  ceased  treat- 
ing disease  on  the  demonistic  basis  or  attempting  to  cure 
national  ills  by  public  prayer.  But  that  the  scientific  spirit  has  by 
no  means  mastered  us  as  yet  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  in  our 
criminological  practice  we  do  not  ordinarily  seek  to  reform  or 
"cure"  the  offender  so  much  as  to  retaliate  in  an  unprofitable 
manner.  Likewise  our  ethics  is  still  written  on  this  subjec- 
tivistic  and  retaliative  basis  of  limiting  morality  to  the  scope  of 
consciousness  or  intention.23 

The  subjective  "social  forces"  of  these  classificationists  are 
only  forms  of  consciousness  by  which  the  subject  recognizes 
more  or  less  efficiently  the  presence  of  personal  activities,  of 
stimuli-response  processes;  while  their  more  objective  "social 
forces"  are  only  abstractions  by  which  we  symbolize  and  present 
to  ourselves  more  or  less  perfectly  the  objective  social  pro- 
cesses. They  are  not  forces;  at  the  most  they  are  partial 
indices  of  social  "forces"  or  processes.  Nor  have  they  con- 
stant equivalents;  for  conscious  processes  and  our  statements 
of  social  processes  have  at  different  times  different  activity 
equivalents.  They  are  qualitative  rather  than  quantitative 
indices.  They  merely  invite  to  always  further  analysis  and 
re-analysis  of  the  objective  social  situation;  and  it  is  on  the 
basis  of  these  analyses  that  all  our  problems  are  to  be  compre- 
hended and  effectively  solved.  When  a  situation  is  once  ade- 
quately analyzed,  when  the  forces  lying  back  of  the  forms  of 

23  Cf.  Introduction. 


76        AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

consciousness  or  the  abstracted  and  generalized  types  of  social 
and  individual  activity,  are  understood,  the  method  of  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  is  simply  that  of  the  application  of  common 
sense.  The  only  mystery  there  is  about  the  treatment  of  social 
problems  is  that  which  we  make  by  being  content  to  stop  with 
the  forms  of  consciousness  in  our  analysis.  We  talk  about  the 
riddle  of  personality  as  an  impregnable  barrier  to  an  adequate 
understanding  of  social  conditions,  because  we  are  attempting 
to  work  out  a  logic  of  forces  and  activities  from  the  kaleido- 
scopic presentations  of  our  conscious  processes. 

The  problem,  then,  before  sociologists  is  to  push  farther 
back  the  analysis  of  objective  phenomena.  Sociology  cannot 
retain  the  solipsistic  character  of  a  solipsistic  discipline  and 
attain  to  the  efficiency  of  a  true  science.  As  psychology  retreats 
from  its  introspective  analysis  of  the  solipsistic  self,  and  as 
ethics  gives  up  mere  intention  as  the  criterion  of  morality,  so 
sociology  must  turn  from  a  subjectivistic  classification  of 
"social  forces"  and  study  the  functioning  of  objective  social 
processes  as  they  operate  in  individuals  and  groups.  It  is 
even  fitting  that  the  "science  of  society"  should  lead  the  move- 
ment and  make  the  demand  upon  related  sciences  for  new 
materials  and  a  new  method.  Already  much  practical  work 
has  been  done  among  sociologists,  economists,  and  political 
scientists.  History,  however,  is  still  largely  subjectivistic,  giv- 
ing its  attention  in  the  main  to  what  is  reputed  to  have  been 
in  the  minds  of  certain  men  in  certain  abstracted  situations. 

To  recapitulate,  the  prevailing  tendency  in  social  theory 
and  practice  almost  since  the  time  of  Hobbes  has  been  toward 
democratic  gratification.  As  opposed  to  the  view  and  practice 
which  it  supplanted,  that  of  aristocratic  gratification,  it  is  an 
obvious  improvement.  But  we  are  now  beginning  to  see  that 
this  tendency  is  only  a  stage  in  social  and  ethical  development, 
and  that  as  an  ideal  it  is  inadequate  for  our  needs.  The  sub- 
stitute which  we  seek  for  it  in  turn  is  democratic  social  con- 
servation. The  question  arises,  How  may  we  attain  it? 
Obviously  only  by  changing  our  measure  of  values  from  the 
subjectivistic  individual  criterion  where  it  now  rests  to  the 


THEORIES   OF  THE  END   OF  ACTIVITY — CRITICISM  77 

.social  criterion  of  the  good  and  development  of  society  as  a 
whole,  the  survival  and  growth  of  the  largest  unified  group, 
based  upon  the  completest  possible  scientific  and  objective 
analysis  of  the  conditions  of  social  activity  in  the  individual  and 
the  group.  The  history  of  the  development  of  this  conception 
and  the  exposition  of  the  method  by  which  it  must  be  realized  is 
the  subject  of  the  next  chapter. 


VI.     THE  ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW  OF  SOCIETY 

DEMAND  OF    SOCIAL    PRACTICE    FOR    A    NEW    SOCIAL  THEORY.— 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  THEORY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  ORGANISM. 

THEORY    OF    THE    SOCIAL    ORGANISM    AND    INDIVIDUAL    LIB- 
ERTY.  DEMAND     FOR     OBJECTIVE     SOCIAL     ANALYSIS     AS     A 

MEANS     TO     SOCIAL     CONTROL. THE     FUNCTION     OF     THE 

ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW  OF  SOCIETY 

The  old  subject! vistic  and  highly  intellectualistic  classifica- 
tions of  the  social  forces  with  their  attendant  implications  of 
individualistic  reference  and  the  practical  negation  of  objective 
social  control  have  proved  highly  unsatisfactory.  The  ideal  of 
democratic  satisfaction  as  a  sufficient  criterion  for  social  action 
is  gradually  being  repudiated  and  another  ideal  of  democratic 
conservation  is  steadily  growing.  We  have  seen  the  trend  away 
from  the  purely  individual  and  hedonic  reference  of  the  socio- 
logical classifications  of  Spencer  and  Ward,  to  classifications 
with  a  mainly  objective  reference,  as  in  the  cases  of  Small, 
Ratzenhofer,  and  De  Greef,  where  chiefly  the  wording  and 
minor  applications  betray  the  subjectivistic  origins.  But  the 
present  trend  is  to  avoid  all  classifications  whatever  from  the 
purely  psychical  or  independently  volitional  side,  and  to  launch 
out  into  an  objective  analysis  of  social  facts  as  they  operate  in 
people  and  in  groups,  in  order  to  bring  these  facts  under  control. 
This  is  a  clear  sign  that  sociology  is  becoming  a  science  of 
definite  and  reasonably  dependable  social  facts,  i.e.,  of  society, 
instead  of  an  introspective  mental  discipline  based  on  the  solip- 
sistic  assumption  of  independent  psychical  causation.1  Social 
practice  has  been,  in  the  main,  objective  in  its  application  and 
reference,  and  is  becoming  more  so — a  fact  which  has  called  for 
a  social  philosophy  which  can  explain  and  justify  current  social 
practice.  The  demand  for  such  an  explanatory  and  communi- 

1  See,  by  way  of  contrast,  Ward,  Psychic  Factors  of  Civilization,  55,  129; 
Small,  op.  cit.,  435 ;  Ross,  op.  cit.,  160-61 ;  Judd,  op.  cit.,  Psy.  Rev.,  March,  1910. 

78 


THE   ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW  OF  SOCIETY  79 

catory  social  theory  has  become  imperative  and  is  being  acceded 
to,  though  somewhat  reluctantly.  This  reluctance  is  due  both  to 
the  deterring  influence  of  contrary  traditions  and  to  the  insuffi- 
cient and  poorly  co-ordinated  data  on  which  to  base  methods 
of  procedure. 

The  line  of  development  in  sociological  theory  which  has 
done  much  toward  laying  an  objective  foundation  for  a  theory 
of  social  control  or  activity  has  been  the  one  commonly  known, 
at  least  in  its  later  development,  as  the  theory  of  the  social 
organism.  This  theory  has  had  its  main  development  in  France. 
Hobbes,  however,  speaks  of  the  state  (society)  as  an  immense 
man.2  He  had  a  conception  of  compulsory  or  organic  social 
unity,  though  it  was  determined  by  his  theory  of  political  abso- 
lutism. But  Comte  appears  to  have  been  the  first  writer  to  have 
a  really  functional  conception  of  the  fundamental  nature  of  the 
social  unity.  He  was  strongly  impressed  with  the  necessity  of 
some  means  of  co-ordinating  or  controlling  social  action  in 
order  to  bring  it  to  the  greatest  efficiency.  Out  of  this  appre- 
ciation grew  his  mystical  and  autocratic,  and  not  at  all  scien- 
tific, view  of  humanity  as  an  ever-growing  and  perfecting  whole, 
in  which  the  individual  merges  and  becomes  a  factor  in  the 
eternal  human  and  social  process,  thus,  and  thus  only,  achieving 
immortality.3  This  view  was  the  center  of  his  doctrine  of  the 
religion  of  humanity,  and  aside  from  its  mystical  and  emotional 
setting  may  be  said  to  presage  an  important  later  scientific 
conception.4 

Herbert  Spencer,  under  the  influence  of  the  biological  dis- 
coveries of  his  time,  took  up  Comte's  idea  of  the  unity  of  the 
group  or  society  and  clothed  it  in  a  biological  analogy,  thus 
rendering  it  concrete  if  not  conclusive.5  The  French  and  Rus- 

2  Leviathan,  Introduction. 

3  Cf.  "Theory  of  the  Future  of  Man,"  System  of  Positive  Polity,  IV  (transl. 
Congreve),  chap.  i. 

*  Saint-Simon,  like  Plato,  had  earlier  put  forward  a  social  program  which 
involved  this  idea  of  the  essential  or  organic  unity  of  society,  but  in  his  mind 
it  was  primarily  a  political  unity  (cf.  L'organisateur  and  Systeme  industriel). 

5  Cf.  "The  Social  Organism,"  Essays  Scientific,  Political,  and  Speculative, 
I,  265  ff. 


8o  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD  OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

sian  writers  in  particular  were  impressed  by  Spencer's  analogy 
and,  under  the  enthusiasm  for  its  concreteness,  for  a  while  lost 
sight  of  its  value  as  a  symbol  in  attempting  to  establish  the 
biological  nature  of  society  in  detail. 

Paul  von  Lilienfeld  took  as  his  thesis  the  view  that  society 
is  a  living  organic  natural  product.6  De  Greef  takes  a  similar 
position,  introducing,  however,  the  idea  of  the  "superorgan- 
ism."  7  This  modifying  concept  of  the  superorganism  was  later 
somewhat  more  extensively  developed  at  the  expense  of  the 
biological  analogy.8  Worms  limits  the  term  social  organism 
much  more  closely  than  the  older  writers9  did,  applying  it  only 
to  nationalities,  which  have  permanence  of  functioning.10 
Pioger  drops  the  analogy  between  man  and  the  cell,  in  the 
organism,  and  compares  the  former  in  his  activities,  rather,  to 
a  drop  of  blood  circulating  in  the  body.11  He  does  not  find 
human  society  so  fundamentally  different  from  insect  and  ani- 
mal societies,  as  most  writers  had;  a  much  exaggerated  and 
over-estimated  intelligence  being  the  sole  distinguishing  factor.12 
The  present  tendency  among  French  sociologists  seems  to  be  to 

6  "Die  menschliche  Gesellschaft  ist,  gleich  den  Naturorganismen,   ein  reales 
Wesen,   ist  nichts   mehr,   als   cine   Fortsetzung   der   Natur,   ist  nur   ein   hoherer 
Ausdruck  derselben  Krafte,  die  alien  Naturerscheinungen  zu  Grunde  liegen." — 
"Die   Menschliche   Gesellschaft   als   realer   Organismus,"    in   Gedanken   iiber   die 
Socialwissenschaften  der  Zukunft,  I  Vorwort. 

7  Cf .  Introduction  a  la  Sociologie,  II,  12  ft'. 

8  Cf.  Pioger,  La  vie  sociale,  chap.  ii. 
*  E.g.,  Novicov. 

10  Cf.  Organisme  et  societe t  31  ff.  u  Op.  cit.,  38. 

12  "En  realite  I'homme  suit  sa  voie  dans  la  societe  dont  il  fait  partie  absolu- 
ment  comme  la  fourmi  remplit  son  role  dans  sa  fourmiliere,  comme  1'abeille 
dans  sa  ruche :  la  seule  difference,  c'est  que  dans  la  societe  humaine  il  y  a 
des  individus  qui  presentent  une  merveilleuse  adaptivite  que  nous  appelons 
1'intelligence  et  a  laquelle  nous  nous  obstinons  a  attribuer  exclusivement  la 
marche  de  1'humanite,  comme  si,  en  realite,  nous  pouvions  vraiment  pretendre 

que  c'est  la  raison  qui  nous  mene II  est  temps  d'abandonner  nos 

illusions  a  ce  sujet:  le  determinisme  ne  perd  pas  plus  ses  droits  en  evolution 

sociale  qu'en  evolution  organique  ou  physique Nous  comprendrons  ainsi 

combien  sont  illusoires  nos  preventions  a  croire  que  nous  faisons  ou  pouvons 
refaire  la  societe.  Pas  plus  que  nous  ne  pouvons  pretendre  pouvoir  refaire 
nos  organes,  pas  plus  nous  ne  pouvons  changer  la  structure  sociale." — Ibid., 
39-40. 


THE   ORGANIC   OR   UNITARY  VIEW   OF   SOCIETY  8 1 

base  the  theory  of  the  compulsory  or  essential  unity  of  society 
upon  the  principle  of  the  division  of  labor  or  of  social  functions, 
an  explanation  destined  to  be  of  the  greatest  value  in  the  future 
development  of  social  science  and  practice.13 

Novicov  was  one  of  the  first  among  sociologists  to  see  the 
necessity  of  applying  the  theory  of  evolution  to  social  facts  in 
the  interest  of  a  science  of  sociology.14  He  pointed  out  in  1897 
that  the  prevailing  classifications  based  upon  sex,  economic, 
juridical,  ethnic,  etc.,  phenomena  are  discrete,  non-exclusive,  and 
anarchistic.  At  the  same  time  he  urged  the  organic  view  of 
society  as  the  only  substitute  capable  of  securing  unity  of  activity 
in  social  matters.15  He  sees  no  hope  for  a  science  of  sociology 
until  the  subjectivistic  criteria  can  be  eliminated.16  Pioger  also 
argues  against  the  prevailing  disunity  of  the  object  of  attention 
in  sociology  and  social  practice.17 

The  critics  of  the  organic  view  of  society,  in  pointing  out 
the  absurdities  of  the  biological  homologies,  which  even  the 

13  Durkheim,   De   la   division   du   travail  social;   and   Pioger,   op.   cit.,  42   ff. 

4  "La  theorie  de  1'evolution  est  d'abord  formulee  par  les  naturalistes, 

puis  generalisee  par  les  philosophes Des  lors  la  sociologie  devient  pos^ 

sible,  et,  en  peu  d'annees,  elle  va  acquerir  une  importance  de  primier  ordre." — La 
politique  Internationale  (Paris,  1886),'  u. 

13  Cf.  Conscience  et  volonte  sociales,  2-3.  Also :  "Ainsi  quelle  est  1'utilite  de 
1'organicisme  ?  Elle  peut  se  resumer  ainsi :  la  theorie  organique  creera  un  mode 
de  penser  particulier  dans  la  sociologie:  un  mode  realiste,  positif.  Elle  nous 
debarrassera,  une  fois  pour  toutes,  des  methodes  abstraites.  Au  lieu  de  cette 
affirmation  generate,  on  peut  dire  aussi  que  la  theorie  organique  nous  delivera 
de  ramorphisme,  de  la  metaphysique  et  du  conservatisme." — "La  theorie  orga- 
nique des  societes,"  Annales  de  I'Institut  international  de  sociologie  (1898),  188. 

16  "Elle  [sociologie]  ne  pourra  se  constituer  en  science  exacte  que  si  sa 
generalisation  derniere  cesse  d'etre  une  affaire  d'appreciation  personnelle. 

Elle  se  constituera  quand  elle  aura  une  generalisation  rationelle La 

porte  est  ouverte  a  1'arbitraire,  a  la  fantaisie  et  a  I'empirisme.  Chacun  arrive 
avec  son  petit  systeme  personnel  et  on  ne  voit  pas  pourquoi  celui  de  Jean 
doit  etre  plus  mauvais  que  celui  de  Paul." — Conscience  et  volonte  sociales,  9-10. 

17"C'est,  en  effet,  une  grande  illusion  de  s'imaginer  qu'on  peut  avoir  des 
idees  justes  sur  la  morale,  la  politique,  la  propriete,  le  droit  ou  la  justice, 
sans  avoir  besoin  d'approfondir  la  notion  meme  de  ce  qu'est  une  societe.  C'est 
a  peu  pres  comme  les  'gens  du  monde'  qui  s'imaginent  naivement  avoir  des 
idees  precises  sur  leur  sante  et  leurs  maladies  sans  avoir  appris  la  biologic,  sans 
se  douter  de  leur  ignorance." — Op.  cit.,  30. 


82  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

earlier  writers  did  not  generally  regard  as  primary  and  which 
have  long  been  practically  abandoned,  have  neglected  the  essen- 
tial idea  and  purpose  of  this  theory.  This  purpose  was  not  ever 
— except  in  certain  aberrations — to  prove  that  society  is  a  living 
animal,  but  to  prove  that  society  is  necessarily  a  living  unity. 
The  real  contribution  of  the  theory  is  that  it  gave  an  objective 
basis  for  the  analysis  and  correlation  of  social  phenomena  in 
the  service  of  social  control  or  functioning.  The  subjectivistic 
and  individualistic  sociologists  have  objected  that  this  view 
destroys  freedom  and  individual  initiative.  Sociology  as  a 
science  of  social  control,  as  a  functional  science,  must  doubtless 
work  toward  limiting  irresponsible  activity  or  freedom  in 
pointing  out  and  preventing  the  deleterious  social  effects  of 
such  activities.  Lilienfeld,  however,  maintains  that  the  more 
efficiently  man  is  developed  socially  the  greater  his  capacity  for 
freedom  becomes.18  True  freedom  of  activity  cannot  be  realized 
in  irresponsibility  of  action  or  under  presumably  purely  sub- 
jective or  personal  initiative,  but  only  where  all  the  conditions 
of  activity  are  uniform  and  thoroughly  controlled,19  where  the 
individual  is  not  subjected  constantly  to  unexpected  stimuli  and 
impulsions  which  he  cannot  guard  against.  Where  there  is  true 
freedom  there  must  be  foresight  of  the  results  of  the  activity, 
and  the  individual  must  be  able  to  guide  himself  according  to 
the  laws  and  principles  of  control  which  a  science  of  social  phe- 
nomena makes  clear  to  him.  The  essential  motive  of  the  organic 
theory  of  society,  at  least  in  its  later  development,  has  not  been 
to  reduce  the  freedom  of  individuals,  except  where  that  freedom 
is  anti-social.  At  its  best  it  has  been  to  present  a  conception 

18  "Der    Mensch    kann    frei,    nach    seiner    Willkiir,    so    oder    anders    handeln, 
aber    nicht    unbedingt,    sondern    mehr    oder    weniger    abhangig    von    den    physi- 
schen,   durch  die  Umgebung  gesetzten   Bedingungen.  Je  hoher  der   Mensch   aus- 
gebildet    ist,    desto    mehr    erweitert    sich    das    Gebiet    der    Freiheit,    und    desto 
zweckmassiger     und     vernunftiger     werden     gleichzeitig     seine     Handlungen." — 
Op.  cit.,  348-49. 

19  ".  ...  As  a  certain  atmospheric  pressure  is  essential  to  the  proper  aera- 
tion   and    circulation    of    the    blood,    so    a    certain    weight    of    social    opinion    is 
necessary   to   the   complete   expression   of   the   nature   of   the   individual,   that   is, 
to  the  freest  volitional  action." — Meakin,  op.  cit.,  208. 


THE   ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW  OF   SOCIETY  83 

of  society,  or  of  group  life,  as  the  necessary  and  compelling 
unity  of  functions.  This  conception,  it  was  expected,  would 
replace  the  old  unscientific  and  subjectivistic  criteria  of  activity 
with  a  scientific  and  objective  criterion  and  would  supply  the 
individual  with  the  necessary  facts  for  guiding  his  consciously 
chosen  activities,  as  well  as  select  his  activities  for  him  when  he 
is  incapable  of  choosing  them  in  a  social  way  himself,  because 
of  either  defectiveness  or  delinquency. 

The  strictly  biological  theory  of  society  failed  because  from 
its  very  nature  it  could  never  get  beyond  the  stage  of  analogy  in 
analyzing  situations.  It  served  to  illustrate  the  essential  unity 
of  society,  but  it  could  not  describe  the  functionings  of  the 
social  processes  with  sufficient  accuracy  to  bring  those  activities 
under  effective  social  conti*ol.  This  necessity  for  a  completer 
analysis  of  social  phenomena  has  been  emphasized  strongly  by  a 
number  of  writers  and  especially  in  this  country  by  Lester  F. 
Ward  and  Albion  W.  Small.  To  Ward  belongs  the  honor  of 
having  emphasized  first  in  an  adequate  manner  the  necessity  for 
discovering  the  facts  of  human  society  and  of  making  them 
generally  known  through  a  system  of  elaborate  instruction.20 
This  emphasis  has  justly  given  Professor  Ward  a  chief  place 
among  the  leading  sociologists.  The  great  defects  of  his  work, 
however,  are  that  it,  like  all  the  sociological  output  contemporary 
with  it,  was  done  from  an  individualistic  standpoint,  and  that 
the  importance  and  necessity  for  an  objective  criterion  of  social 
control  was  not  appreciated.  Moralists  of  all  times  have  dis- 
cussed the  question  whether  knowledge  of  the  right  necessarily 
leads  to  doing  the  right,21  and  the  protagonists  of  this  theme 
have  never  been  able  to  convince  the  doubters.  Nor  can  they 
ever  do  so.  Activity  is  the  result  of  the  set  of  the  whole  nervous 
system  (merely  including  the  immediate  stimulus)22  and  not  of 
the  mere  ideational  processes  alone.  Consequently  there  is  always 
likely  to  be  more  or  less  dissimilarity  between  knowledge  and 
conduct.  It  is  at  this  point  that  Ward's  theory  of  the  sufficiency 

20  Cf.  Dynamic  Sociology,  II,  chaps,  xiii-xiv. 

21  Cf.  Plato,  Republic,  book  iv. 

22  Cf.  chap,  iii,  and  Woodworth,  op.  tit. 


84  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

of  research  and  instruction  breaks  down,  as  any  theory  of  sub- 
jective control  must  break  down.  Education,  though  it  involves 
a  certain  amount  of  objective  social  control,  is  not  alone  effect- 
ive. It  is,  however,  one  of  the  most  powerful  adjuncts  to  social 
control  if  it  is  of  a  functional  and  social  nature. 

Professor  Small,  likewise,  has  insisted  strongly  upon  the 
analysis  of  social  phenomena  as  well  as  upon  closer  co-operation 
among  the  social  sciences  in  this  work.  In  speaking  of  the 
conditions  of  society,  he  says,  "Life  is  an  affair  of  adjusting 
ourselves  to  material,  matter-of-fact,  inexorable  nature."  23  But 
his  conception  of  what  constitutes  social  analysis  is  not  in  the 
last  analysis,  seemingly,  so  much  the  discovery  of  the  concrete 
facts  of  the  working  of  the  social  processes  as  a  kind  of  subjec- 
tive analysis  and  co-ordination  of  real  or  imagined  psychical 
processes  in  the  individual.24  He  conceives  of  social  problems 
as  entanglements  of  persons  with  certain  interests  or  conscious 
processes  to  be  satisfied.25  "Sociology  accordingly  involves  first 
of  all  a  technique  for  detecting,  classifying,  criticizing,  measur- 
ing, and  correlating  human  interests." 2G  Professor  Small's 
actual  analysis  of  situations,  however,  is  usually  of  the  objective 
kind. 

23  General   Sociology,    408.      "Every   social    question,    from    electing    a    pope 
down  to  laying  out  a  country  road,  is  in  the  last  analysis  a  question  of  what 
to  do  in  the  face  of  the  grudging  soil,  and  the  cruel  climate,  and  the  narrow 
space,  of  the  region  from  which  we  get  our  food." — Ibid. 

24  Cf.  ibid.,  433-34;  and  Amer.  Jour,  of  Sociology   (March,   1907),  647. 

25  "Social   problems    are    entanglements    of   persons    with   persons,    and   each 
of  these  persons  is  a  combination  of  interests  developed  in  certain  unique  pro- 
portions  and   directions.     All   study   of   social   situations   must    consequently   be 
primarily  a  qualitative   and  quantitative   analysis   of   actually   observed   mixtures 
of   interests." — General  Sociology,  436. 

26  Ibid.,   437.     This    limitation   of   the   problem    of   sociology   to    a   study   of 
human   experience    (ibid.,    184),   thus   making   the   object   of   attention   for   it   an 
isolated  metaphysical  entity  on  the  analogy  of  the  psychologist's  solipsistic  self, 
instead  of  making  it  coincident  with  the  study  of  human  activity  or   function- 
ing, has  also  been  shared  by  others.     Cf.  Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpre- 
tations,   Introd. ;    Tarde,    Laws    of   Imitation    (transl.    Parsons),    3:      "Socially, 
everything    is    either   invention    or    imitation" ;    Davis,    Psychological   Interpreta- 
tion of  Society,   199;  etc. 


THE   ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW   OF   SOCIETY  85 

The  more  fruitful  tendency  among  sociologists,  the  line  of 
activity  which  is  making  good  the  failure  or  omission  of  the 
organic  analogists,  has  been  in  connection  with  the  concrete 
analysis  of  social  conditions.  For  a  long  while  the  ethnologists 
and  anthropologists  had  a  predominating  influence  in  the  de- 
velopment of  sociology.  Both  Spencer  and  Letourneau  wrote 
their  sociologies  from  this  standpoint,  and  the  more  recent  works 
of  Westermarck  and  Hobhouse  in  the  field  of  social  ethics  have 
largely  followed  this  lead.  But,  besides  the  relative  simplicity 
and  non-cultural  nature  of  primitive  society,  there  are  numerous 
other  limitations  to  this  method  which  have  prevented  it  from 
being  generally  adopted.  Of  more  importance  is  the  actual 
analysis  of  present-day  social  conditions,  such  as  has  been  under- 
taken by  the  host  of  writers  on  the  structure  and  functioning  of 
particular  contemporary  groups  and  institutions.  And  most 
important  of  all  are  the  various  more  or  less  technical  studies 
in  social  psychology,  anthropogeography,  immigration,  of  the 
labor  question,  of  housing  conditions  and  reform,  in  vital  statis- 
tics, in  public  education,  in  criminology,  philanthropy,  etc.  It  is 
from  the  direct  and  co-ordinated  application  of  these  facts  to 
human  conditions,  and  not  from  logical  classifications  of  real  or 
pseudo-mental  processes  or  "social  forces,"  nor  from  working 
over  the  solipsistic  categories  of  a  subject! vistic  psychology  and 
ethics,  that  a  valid  sociology  and  social  practice  must  be  built  up. 

Much,  however,  of  this  objective  analysis  of  social  phe- 
nomena has  been  unsatisfactory.  The  findings  of  the  investi- 
gator with  a  bias  are  always  open  to  suspicion,  and  time  is 
always  necessary  to  the  verification  and  testing  of  facts.  An 
intelligible  analysis  and  scientific  evaluation  of  social  phenomena 
cannot  be  made  without  constantly  keeping  in  mind  two  things, 
(i)  the  perspective  of  social  development,  and  (2)  the  unitary 
nature  of  society.  Most  errors  in  the  analysis  of  social  con- 
ditions, as  well  as  in  prescriptions  for  social  ills,  are  due  to  dis- 
regard for  one  or  both  of  these  principles.  The  two  principles 
are  themselves  closely  related,  the  idea  of  the  unitary  nature  of 
society  depending  upon  a  perspective  of  social  development,  just 


86  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL  CONTROL 

as  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  species  comes  only  with  the  idea  of 
evolution. 

While  we  must  reject  the  theory  of  the  biological  nature  of 
society,  it  is  necessary,  however,  to  recognize  its  fundamental 
contribution — the  emphasis  upon  the  unitary  character  of  society 
and  its  sanction  of  objective  analysis  and  control.  Man's  bio- 
logical evolution,  notably  in  connection  with  prolonged  infancy, 
makes  a  social  organization  necessary  to  his  existence.  All  insti- 
tutional and  cultural  life  is  essentially  based  upon  such  organi- 
zation and  often  upon  the  strictest  social  control.  The  plea  to 
live  according  to  nature  or  to  conform  our  social  institutions  to 
"natural"  laws  has  no  meaning,  unless  we  wish  not  only  to 
undertake  a  difficult  or  impossible  return  to  a  non-cultural  ani- 
mal existence,  but  also  to  undergo  reversion  in  our  individual 
physiological  and  organic  constitutions.  The  social  problem  is 
not  the  elimination  of  the  artificial  from  social  life,  but  its  con- 
trol, its  subordination  to  the  service  of  social  ends  and  activities. 
Such  a  control  can  be  obtained  only  on  the  basis  of  a  scientific 
analysis  of  social  phenomena.  The  analysis  of  the  individual  is 
only  one  of  the  phases  of  such  analysis,  while  the  analysis  of 
conscious  processes  and  wants  or  interests  as  "social  forces"  is 
only  a  still  further  subdivision  of  the  analysis  of  the  individual, 
and  is  co-ordinate  with  the  analysis  of  his  habits,  instincts, 
physiological  structures,  digestive  capacity,  etc.27  The  problem 
of  social  analysis  and  of  the  determination  of  the  "social  forces" 
is  a  much  more  complex,  and  also  a  much  more  fruitful,  task 
than  the  subjectivistic  sociologists  have  appreciated.  Only  by 
replacing  and  supplementing  analogy  and  subjective  classifica- 
tion with  concrete  social  facts  can  we  hope  to  have  a  true  science 
of  society,  or  sociology. 

*  Subjective  factors,  however,  cannot  be  disregarded;  for  the  character 
of  the  social  process  depends  in  large  measure  upon  the  mental  attitudes  of 
individuals  and,  with  the  development  of  a  more  adequate  and  scientific  social 
control,  will  depend  in  an  increasing  degree  upon  these  attitudes.  Therefore 
the  psychic  factors  must  be  analyzed — not  as  independent  phenomena  but 
always  with  reference  to  the  fact  that  they  are  relatively  modifiable  incidents 
of  the  general  objective  social  process  and  with  the  purpose  of  utilizing  them 
in  the  service  of  a  broader  social  control. 


THE   ORGANIC  OR  UNITARY  VIEW  OF   SOCIETY  87 

The  farther  such  an  analysis  proceeds,  that  is,  the  more  we 
are  able  to  go  beyond  the  na'ive  conception  of  mere  states  of 
consciousness  as  the  sole  or  only  worthy  content  of  social  life 
and  to  abstract  away  from  this  consciousness  social  facts  and 
processes  with  objective  reference  and  connection,  just  so  much 
the  more  we  have  a  science  of  society.  The  less  the  reference  \ 
is  to  persons  conceived  as  mental  processes,  as  organisms  exist- 
ing for  hedonic  or  egoistic  satisfactions,  and  the  more  the  refer- 
ence is  to  the  society  as  a  functioning  group  of  persons  in 
activity,  the  more  the  measure  of  social  values  ceases  to  be  the 
individual  and  becomes  the  satisfactory  functioning  of  the  most 
efficient  group  of  which  he  is  a  member.  The  more  such  a  view 
grows  the  less  is  the  attention  upon  self-satisfaction,  i.e.,  upon 
the  production  of  adjustments  guided  by  relative  feeling  values, 
and  the  more  it  is  upon  providing  a  controlled  and  relatively 
constant  environment  for  social  life  and  activity.  Under  such 
a  condition  the  emphasis  necessarily  ceases  to  be  upon  democratic 
gratification  and  falls  upon  democratic  conservation.  Likewise') 
the  social  organization  becomes  in  a  sense  compulsory,  for  only/ 
where  there  is  relatively  complete  co-ordination  of  activitiesj 
based  upon  scientific  analysis  of  social  phenomena  can  art 
effectively  constant  environment  be  maintained.  But  the  basis 
of  this  control,  which  is  coercive  where  necessary  upon  certain 
refractory  members  of  the  group,  is  not  merely  custom,  individual 
whim,  or  the  "tyranny  of  public  opinion,"  but  the  findings  of"" 
science,  i.e.,  the  analysis  of  social  phenomena.28  The  rapidity 
with  which  such  a  compulsory  social  control  can  be  established 
depends  upon  the  rapidity  with  which  an  objective  social  analy- 
sis proceeds.  The  conception  of  the  unitary  and  organic  nature 
of  society  can  be  of  great  service  in  furthering  such  an  analysis, 
because  it  provides  a  new  and  effective  standard  for  co- 
ordinating facts  and  for  directing  research. 

28  Cf.   Ellwood,  op.  cit.,   325. 


VII.     CONCLUSIONS  AND  IMPLICATIONS 

I.  The  chief  conclusions  which  have  been  formulated  or 
implied  in  the  foregoing  discussion  may  be  restated  as  follows. 

It  appears  that  the  prevailing  type  of  sociology,  especially 
that  which  has  developed  in  America  and  England,  is  a  part  of 
the  general  movement  for  Herpnrratir  gratifiratinp  which  had  its 
greatest  vogue  in  the  nineteenth  and  the  second  half  of  the 
eighteenth  centuries.  It,  however,  is  the  particular  outgrowth 
of  the  less  radical  wing  of  that  movement,  known  as  utilitarian- 
ism, and  it  developed  under  the  influence  of  a  growing  analysis 
of  social  phenomena,  especially  in  the  field  of  ethnology.  This 
sociology,  like  the  preceding  and  contemporary  utilitarianism 
and  neo-utilitarianism  in  ethics,  has  been  and  is  prevailingly 
subjectivistic  and  individualistic  both  in  content  and  in  form. 
The  other  wings  of  the  general  democratic  movement  are  those 
of  anarchism  and  hedonistic  socialism,  which  have  in  various 
ways  affected  sociology  but  which,  under  the  influence  of  an 
increasing  objective  analysis  of  social  phenomena,  are  now 
passing  out  of  vogue  in  their  extreme  forms.  The  other  types 
of  sociology  of  importance  are  those  represented  by  the  biologir 
cal  and  organic  viewsjjf  society  and  by  the  "practical"  sociolo- 
gists— those  who  aim  at  a  concrete  and  objective  analysis  of 
social  phenomena  for  the  sake  of  social  control  in  some  par- 
ticular field  of  social  activity. 

Through  the  whole  range  of  the  development  of  social  theory 
so  far  there  appears  to  have  been  a  more  or  less  constant  move- 
ment toward  an  objective  statement  of  social  problems. 
Hobbes's  philosophy  was  a  protest  against  the  subjective  and 
noumenal  character  of  Scholasticism.  Locke  pointed  out,  in  his 
own  terminology,  the  relativity  of  subjective  presentations  or 
criteria,  iBentham's  professed  and  real  purpose  was  to  obtain 
a  constant  and  scientific  experimental  basis  for  regulating  morals 
and  legislation,  under  which  regulation  every  one  should  be 

88 


CONCLUSIONS  AND  IMPLICATIONS  89 

equal  in  privileges./  At  his  time  whatever  unitary  nature  was 
attributed  to  society  was  thought  of  as  imposed  from  without, 
by  divinity,  sovereign,  or  popular  institution,  and  not  as  spring- 
ing from  the  internal  conditions  of  human  social  life.  Conse- 
quently, he  did  not  undertake  an  objective  social  analysis,  but 
attempted  a  subjective  analysis  of  feeling  consciousness,  and 
upon  this  analysis  he  based  his  social  theory  and  policy  That 
his  classification  was  not  adequate  to  the  purpose  is,  in  the  light 
of  what  has  been  said  above,  to  be  expected.  His  followers,  y 
Mill,  Spencer,  the  social  or  neo-utilitarian  ethicists,  and  the 
early  sociologists  have  constantly  extended  the  analysis  and  have 
modified  the  criterion,  till  at  last  its  hedonistic  character  is 
largely  destroyed  or  disguised,  though  its  subjectivism  remains. 

'It  has  been  extremely  difficult  for  even  the  later  ethicists 
and  sociologists,  with  their  subjectivistic  philosophic  bias,  to 
arrive  at  the  idea  that  society  is  a  self -existent,  an  organic  and 
self -perpetuating  unity,1  that  it  is  not  the  creature  of  deities, 
sovereigns,  parliaments,  public  opinion,  acting  as  genuine  or 
quasi-independent  entities,  but  that  it  as  a  unity  creates  these 
as  incidents  and  forms  of  its  existence.  Likewise  they  have  not 
readily  grasped  the  fact  that  an  adequate  social  analysis  must 
be  primarily  an  analysis  of  this  social  unity,  rather  than  of  the 
variable  and  indefinite  phenomena  "mind"  and  "feeling,"  which 
are  merely  phenomena  and  forms  of  the  greater  social  wholej 

VHuman  society  is  not  merely  isolated  psychical  phenomena, 
as  the  subjectivistic  and  solipsistic  sociologists  appear  to  have 
thought.  It  is  not  primarily  interaction  of  mind  with  mind, 
but  co-ordinated  adjustment  or  coadaptation  of  men  to  physical, 
biological,  and  social  environment,  in  which  mental  phenomena 
play  their  part  and  no  more.  The  analysis  of  mental  phenomena 
in  isolation  cannot  serve  as  a  practical  working  basis  for  social 
practice  and  controlj 

Objective  social  analysis  is  being  made  in  some  fields  more 
rapidly  than  it  is  being  incorporated  in  a  general  theory  of 
social  action  and  control. 

1  Sumner  has  come  closest  to  this  idea  in  America,  although  he  has  been 
hindered  by  certain  individualistic  preconceptions.  Cf.  Folkways. 


QO  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

The  theorists  of  the  social  organism  gave  form  to  the 
organic  or  unitary  view  of  society — basing  the  theory  finally 
upon  the  necessity  of  a  division  and  specialization  of  functions 
among  the  members  of  the  group  in  order  to  meet  the  increas- 
ing demands  of  population  upon  food  supply — and  they  sanc- 
tioned in  theory  the  demand  of  social  practice  for  objective 
analysis.  They  provided  a  social  criterion  based  upon  the  rela-  • 
tively  permanent  needs  of  society  instead  of  upon  the  change- 
able wants,  interests,  or  feelings  of  the  individual. 

Only  a  unitary  or  organic  view  of  society — devoid,  of 
course,  of  the  biological  homologies  and  analogies,  which  have 
previously  been  merely  incidental  to  it  in  a  na'ive  stage  of 
development — can  furnish  an  adequate  basis  for  analysis  of 
social  phenomena  and  for  the  communication  and  application  of 
the  findings  of  this  social  analysis,  -so  long  as  the  individual  is 
regarded  as  the  measure  of  social  values  or  is  regarded  as  one 
of  two  poles,  of  which  society  is  considered  the  other  antago- 
nistic pole,  there  can  be  no  effective  and  convincing  argument 
for  social  conformity  and  co-operation^ 

'Subjectivistic  sociology,  ethics,  and  psychology  have  con- 
trived to  perpetuate  the  pre-evolutionary  conception  of  man  as  a 
being  of  a  different  order  from  the  animal  world.  A  functional 
sociology  must  drop  this  fiction  and  study  man  as  essentially  a 
product  of  the  physical,  biological,  and  social  conditions  in 
which  he  functions.  Man's  superior  mental  equipment  must 
undoubtedly  be  regarded  as  a  superior  means  of  adjustment,  on 
the  basis  of  varied  co-ordinated  functioning,  but  not  as  a  legiti- 
JLJ --mate  means  to  anarchistic  self -gratification/ 

It  appears  that  the  possession  of  knowledge  is  not  a  sufficient 
preparation  for  adequate  social  functioning.  The  idea  is  not 
compulsory,  because  it  is  not  representative  of  the  total  equip- 
ment for  action.  Hence,  social  control  cannot  be  individually 
r  determined,  but  must  proceed  from  a  controlled  environment 
which  provides  the  individual  with  a  uniform  and  constant 
source  of  stimuli. 

TSocial  control,  moreover,  cannot  be  based  upon  a  subjectivis-  v 
tic  criterion,  because  the  individual  cannot  know  the  whole  social 


CONCLUSIONS  AND   IMPLICATIONS  91 

process,  i.e.,  foresee  all  possible  stimuli;  also  because  feeling  is 
wholly  relative  to  the  objective  circumstance  producing  it  and  is 
not  efficient  individually  or  socially  as  a  criterion  of  choice. 
Feeling  can  easily  be  regulated  socially  through  the  control  of 
habit  formations,  and  thus  pleasant  feeling  may  be  made  to  cor- 
respond to  any  useful  social  activity  which  is  supported  by  public 
opinion  and  organized  society^ 

Society  regarded  as  an  organism  or  essential  unity  must  be 
considered  as  in  some  degree  compulsory  and  coercive,2  but  only 
in  the  sense  in  which  the  social  organization  controls  the  physi- 
cal, biological,  and  social  environment  in  which  the  individual 
functions.    This  control,  to  be  adequate,  must  be  on  the  basis  of 
the  completest  possible  scientific  analysis  of  social  phenomena, 
and  must  be  exercised  by  a  democratic  or  by  some  other  flexible 
control.    The  compulsion  or  coercion  which  the  group  normally  1 
employs  is  justified  on  the  ground  that  the  social  organization  \ 
selects  the  better  activity,  socially  considered,  when  the  indi- 
vidual will  not  or  cannot.    If  the  social  analysis  is  unreliable  or 
if  the  administration  of  control  is  open  to  question,  there  will  be 
a  constant  reference  back  from  the  group  to  the  individual,  as 
the  center  of  social  values,  which  will  result  in  a  more  adequate 
analysis  and  control  socially. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  group  control  with  coercion  has  always 

2  The  terms  compulsion  or  coercion  are  made  to  refer,  in  this  study,  to 
any  method  or  means  by  which  society,  as  the  greater  functioning  unity, 
secures  conformity  and  co-operation,  either  of  a  conscious  or  unconscious  sort, 
in  carrying  on  the  organic  or  unified  social  process.  If  a  highly  conscious 
system  of  social  education  is  found  feasible  and  if  it  operates  more  effect- 
ively than  the  harsh  and  milder  forms  of  autocratic  and  traditional  control — 
as  doubtless  it  would  under  a  system  of  scientific  social  control — it  will  gradu- 
ally supplant  the  other  forms.  In  fact,  it  is  not  conceivable  that  efficient  and 
permanent  social  control  or  adjustment  can  be  attained  through  education, 
except  on  the  basis  of  a  scientific  and  objective  analysis  of  social  phenomena 
or  processes.  The  primary  purpose  of  education,  even,  is  to  provide  for  the 
developing  socius  those  stimuli  to  thought  and  action  which  are  deemed  most 
valuable  in  shaping  his  character.  Education  becomes  thereby  a  method  of 
social  control  which  is  always  in  some  degree  compulsory  and  coercive.  The 
important  thing,  in  this  as  in  other  forms  of  control,  is  to  preserve,  by  what- 
ever means  necessary,  the  unity  and  apportionment  of  social  functions  and  thus 
to  preserve  the  cultural  gains  of  civilization.  The  contention  here  is  that  the 
method  will  be  more  effective  if  scientifically  determined. 


Q2  AN   OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

been  the  prevailing  form  of  social  control.  Such  controls  have 
variously  been  based  upon  mythological,  theological,  and  meta- 
physical categories,  and  sooner  or  later  they  have  always  broken 
down,  because  they  were  not  based  on  an  adequate  social  analysis. 

A  complete  scientific  social  control  cannot  be  expected  to 
become  operative  at  once,  of  course,  but  where  a  social  fact  is 
established  it  should  become  as  obligatory  as  the  laws  of  astron- 
omy or  physics.  The  wilful  disregard  of  the  laws  of  health,  of 
social  hygiene,  of  public  morality,  should  have  as  little  tolerance 
as  a  wilful  disregard  of  the  law  of  falling  bodies  when  the  opera- 
tion of  this  law  has  social  consequences  of  equal  importance. 

The  social  organization,  or  the  group,  is  the  social  object  of 
primary  importance,  while  the  individual  is  secondary,  constitu- 
tive, and  contributory.  Society  is  relatively  constant,  while  the 
individual  is  relatively  modifiable.3  In  fact,  man  with  his  intelli- 
gence, language,  arts,  is  the  product  of  group  life,  of  the  neces- 
sity for  co-ordinate  adjustment  to  environment  to  a  much  greater 
extent  than  the  group  is  the  product  of  inherent  psychic  charac- 
teristics of  people.  Even  animal  life  is  largely  group  life. 

With  such  an  objective  and  scientific  basis  of  social  control 
replacing  the  old  subjective  criteria  of  activity,  we  may  look  for 
a  policy  of  democratic  conservation  instead  of  one  of  democratic 
gratification,  for  an  ideal  of  social  service  in  the  place  of  a  reign 
of  hedonism. 

II.  Some  of  the  more  important  implications  of  this  organic 
or  unitary  view  of  society  need  to  be  mentioned  briefly. 

Such  a  view  does  not  imply  the  rule  of  an  elite  in  any  objec- 
tionable sense.  So  far,  all  groups  which  have  survived  have 
been  controlled  either  by  an  autocrat  or  by  an  elite.  The  medi- 
cine men,  the  patriarchs,  the  old  men,  chiefs,  tyrants,  kings,  oli- 

3  Robert  Owen  expressed  this  idea,  possibly  in  somewhat  extreme  form, 
a  century  ago :  "The  character  of  man  is,  without  a  single  exception,  always 
formed  for  him ;  ....  it  may  be,  and  is  chiefly,  created  by  his  predecessors ;  .  .  .  . 
they  give  him,  or  may  give  him,  his  ideas  and  habits,  which  are  the  powers  that 
govern  and  direct  his  conduct.  Man,  therefore,  never  did,  nor  is  it  possible  he 
ever  can,  form  his  own  character." — A  New  View  of  Society  (3d  ed.),  91-92. 
See  also,  Spencer,  Social  Statics,  35.  This  idea  is  coming  to  be  basic  in  scientific 
social  technology. 


CONCLUSIONS  AND  IMPLICATIONS  93 

garchies,  popular  assemblies  composed  of  demagogues  and  poli- 
ticians, at  different  stages  of  development  and  in  different  places, 
have  always  ruled.  There  has  never  been,  and  it  is  not  conceiv- 
able that  there  ever  will  be,  a  pure  democracy  of  very  consider- 
able proportions,  in  which  every  man  is  equally  free  and  capable 
in  forming  his  opinions  and  in  expressing  his  activities.  Experi- 
ence is  leading  us  in  the  United  States  toward  the  adoption  of  the 
policy  of  centralized  administration  by  experts,  who  are  made 
directly  responsible  to  the  people.  Every  social  organization  must 
be  coercive  to  the  extent  necessary  for  efficiency  or  it  must  break 
down.  A  social  organization  based  upon  a  scientific  analysis 
and  control  of  social  phenomena  in  the  broadest  sense  involves 
the  rule  of  an  elite  in  no  greater  degree  than  is  implied  in  the 
responsible  direction  of  administrative  details  by  experts,  instead 
of  more  or  less  irresponsible  control  and  exploitation  by  pro- 
fessional politicians.  If  we  could  conceive  of  a  society  in  which 
all  the  individuals  were  equally  informed  on  all  social  matters 
and  all  absolutely  sincere,  all  traces  of  an  elite  composed  of 
experts,  of  aristocrats,  or  of  professional  politicians  would  dis- 
appear. But  that  is  an  impossibility. 

Nor  does  such  a  view  of  society  deny  the  necessity  for  social 
change  or  fail  to  make  provision  for  it.  On  the  contrary,  it 
prescribes  the  condition  for  such  change,  demanding  that  all 
adjustments  of  individuals  to  the  group  shall  be  made  on  the 
basis  of  a  scientific  analysis  and  evaluation  of  social  phenomena, 
so  far  as  such  knowledge  is  available;  and  it  further  makes  it 
obligatory  upon  the  individual  to  discover  such  knowledge  where 
it  is  possible  for  him  to  do  so.  But  since  the  individual  cannot 
discover  all  the  needed  facts  for  himself,  it  recognizes  the  neces- 
sity for  having  these  facts  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
individual  by  the  social  organization,  which  must  also  demand 
social  conformity.  Those  activities  not  under  a  scientific  social 
control  and  which  need  adjustment,  should  be  readjusted  so  far 
as  possible  on  the  basis  of  scientifically  determined  knowledge 
of  social  facts,  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  social  organization 
to  supply  and  enforce  through  whatever  agencies  are  most 
effective — education,  investigation,  expert  service,  etc.  The 


94  AN  OBJECTIVE   STANDARD   OF   SOCIAL   CONTROL 

main  emphasis  of  this  view  of  society  is  upon  the  abolition  of 
whimsical,  subjectivistic,  hedonistic,  and  thus  predominantly 
anti-social,  adjustments  and  maladjustments,  through  insistence 
upon  scientific  social  adjustments  so  far  as  a  science  of  society 
can  provide  the  facts. 

Thus  the  social  organism  or  organization,  intelligently 
considered,  establishes  its  importance,  first,  as  a  means  for 
stimulating  analysis  and  co-ordination  of  social  phenomena  for 
guidance  in  social  control,  and,  second,  as  the  means  to  the  dis- 
semination and  enforcement  of  the  findings  of  such  investiga- 
tions. At  the  present  time  we  have  no  adequate  machinery  for 
the  investigation  of  such  facts  on  a  large  scale  and  our  sociology, 
because  of  its  largely  subjectivistic  reference  and  emphasis,  is 
almost  entirely  impotent  to  direct  such  investigation. 

Any  compulsory  organization  not  supplied  with  all  the  facts 
necessary  to  a  scientific  social  control  must  necessarily  make 
mistakes,  as  all  social  organizations  so  far  have.  Useful  activi- 
ties are  liable  to  be  interdicted  and  harmful  ones  to  be 
encouraged.  The  difficulty,  however,  rests  not  with  control  itself 
when  conscientiously  administered  but  with  an  inadequate 
social  science.  The  ever-present  problem  of  social  science  is 
to  discover  what  adjustments  will  be  most  effective  in  securing 
social  development  and  the  survival  of  the  group  and  of  the 
individual.4 

Perhaps  the  chief  advantage  of  the  frank  recognition  of 
the  inherently  compulsory  nature  of  the  social  unity  as  here 
explained,  is  that  it  assists  in  centering  the  attention  upon  the 
organic  nature  or  connectedness  of  social  problems,  i.e.,  of 
cases  of  maladjustment.  It  promotes  analysis  and  leads  to 
the  relating  of  problems  to  one  another,  in  that  it  demands 
a  co-ordination  of  knowledge  about  the  problem  with  a  view 
to  group  survival.  Under  such  a  grouping,  sociology  and 

4  To  guard  against  a  possible  misunderstanding,  it  seems  necessary  to  say 
that  group  or  social  survival  must  also  include  the  survival  of  all  those  indi- 
viduals who  are  capable  of  social  service.  It  is  almost  axiomatic  that  the 
group  must  be  so  constituted  as  to  provide  the  utmost  possible  opportunity 
for  the  training  of  individuals  in  social  functions  and  to  utilize  their  capaci- 
ties when  so  trained. 


CONCLUSIONS  AND  IMPLICATIONS  95 

social  policy  cease  to  be  confusions  of  apparently  more  or 
less  unrelated  problems,  many  of  which  conflict  in  their  solu- 
tions. With  all  minor  social  or  personal  problems  thus  under- 
stood as  converging  in  one  large  and  conclusive  problem  of 
group  survival  and  growth,  each  particular  problem  becomes 
an  attempt  to  co-ordinate  all  the  activities,  thus  working  toward 
the  abolition  of  social  waste. 

The  group  which  is  regarded  as  the  object  of  attention 
will  always  be  the  most  inclusive  group  which  can  be  made 
to  function  as  a  unity.  Hitherto  it  has  been  the  ambition  of 
most  great  religions,  and  of  many  empires,  to  treat  the  world 
as  a  'whole  as  such  a  unity.  All  have  failed.  With  the  breaking 
down  of  magical,  mythological,  theological,  and  metaphysical 
controls,  and  with  the  gradual  substitution  of  an  adequate 
scientific  social  control,  with  adequate  provision  for  necessary 
and  scientific  change,  an  adequate  world  control  may  be  ex- 
pected. 

A  truly  scientific  control,  however,  of  any  group,  large  or 
small,  cannot  be  attained  till  all  science  and  sciences  recognize 
the  fundamental  problem  of  social  growth  and  survival.  The 
problems  of  all  the  sciences  must  converge  about  this  one  pri- 
mary pragmatic  and  functional  problem,  and  their  energies  must 
be  directed,  not  by  individual  whim  and  interest,  but  by  the 
demands  of  the  social  organism.  When  such  co-ordination  of 
scientific  investigation  is  attained  all  science  from  astronomy 
to  sociology  will  be,  for  the  first  time,  truly  functional  and 
social  in  its  application. 

The  final  and  supreme  implication  of  this  view  of  society 
is  that  when  a  fact  is  discovered  it  shall  be  applied  and 
enforced.  The  counter  plea  of  "interference  with  individual  lib- 
erty" should  have  no  weight  in  court,  for  individuals  have  no 
liberties  in  opposition  to  a  scientifically  controlled  society  but 
find  all  their  legitimate  freedom  in  conformity  to  and  further- 
ance of  such  social  functioning.  Society  is  not  yet  regarded  as  a 
compulsory  unity  for  much  more  than  the  suppression  of  re- 
bellion, the  repulsion  of  foreign  invasion,  the  punishment 
of  personal  (not  political)  robbery,  and  the  discouragement  of 


96        AN  OBJECTIVE  STANDARD  OF  SOCIAL  CONTROL 

personal  violence.  Proper  scientific  analysis  of  social  phe- 
nomena will  disclose  other  less  obvious  but  even  more  press- 
ing problems,  as  indeed  it  has  already  disclosed  them.  As 
these  are  abstracted  from  the  incoherent  mass  of  social  phe- 
nomena the  compulsory  or  functional  unity  of  society  also 
comes  into  view  and  means  must  be  found  for  the  coercion 
of  individuals  who  stand  in  the  way  of  efficient  social  function- 
ing. The  chief  opposition  to  such  effective  social  control  comes 
from  the  old  subjectivistic,  individualistic,  and  hedonic  dogma 
of  personal  liberty  and  the  co-ordinate  term  self-realization 
which  are  mainly  pleas  for  personal  license  in  more  attractive 
forms. 

Thus  the  advancement  of  civilization  appears  to  be  marked 
by  the  growth  of  the  conception  of  the  compulsory  and  inherent 
functional  unity  of  society,  both  for  the  purpose  of  furthering  a 
scientific  analysis  of  social  phenomena  and  for  enforcing  the  find- 
ings of  that  analysis.  The  working-out  of  such  a  theory  in 
its  details,  as  a  means  of  communicating  ideas  and  informa- 
tion concerning  the  character  of  social  activities  and  as  a  means 
of  correlating  and  controlling  these  activities,  is  largely  yet  to 
be  accomplished.  In  fact,  it  can  be  consummated  only  as  the 
actual  concrete  social  processes  are  analyzed  and  evaluated. 


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